[ QUOTE ]
2) The Arena is a situation where neither toon can leave the battle. Players, blasters in particular, were using Phase Shift to effectively gank and escape and the devs put a stop to it. Clearly ganking was not to be tolerated. What is interesting is that the Stalker AT is predicated on ganking. Its speciality is the 1v1 battle with the escape. Why take that ability away from blasters in consensual battles but promote and endorse it in another AT in non-consensual battles?
[/ QUOTE ]This is the most insane leap of logic I've seen in awhile. It had nothing to do with ganking. It was because they could get a kill and then become invincible for the rest of the match, thereby giving them a guaranteed win. Stalkers are far from invincible, even while hidden.
YES I must admit i had so much fun one shotting heroes in the first week or so in the game, my stalker is what i wanted my rouge to be..but the rouge was just no real fun. Teams and players anyone in PvP zones know to never stop moving or have a repel on or tacks on the ground it makes my job very frustrating. I find my self haveing to wait to chase a fleeing (weakened) hero to AS them while they heal or jumping from roof top to roof top for hours hoping to catch one just enjoying the sites. only place i can consistently find heroes to kill is in there base and the possible debt from NPC is not worth it most of the time.
In short if weaking AS will "balance" the AT then they might as well be scrappers, but then there defense and attacks need to be increased.
-Skorna
victory
also i know the NERF to end all NERFs' is coming that will make me question my intrest in the game so i am enjoying it as much as possible now.
so to my fellow stalkers i say "one shot kills for all and for the rest shut up and respawn.:P
-skorna
victory
This is such a stickler of an issue all the way round... The tough part is
that both sides of it can feel totally abused, and they're right...
I've been running a Nin/Nin Stalker for 20 lvls now, mostly PvP (since
L15), with enough PvE to level and buy a few meager trinkets... I'll
reflect on some of the things I've personally experienced...
Whether it's the way things *should* be, or not, I'll leave open for you
all to debate...
My toon is designed, built and slotted to be a lone hunter - he is intended
to be a 1v1 assassin, pure and simple... He currently (at L20) has DO's
in AS, and some toggles... that's it! TO's in the other powers... (the
Infamy crunch is absolutely wretched in CoV, but that's a different
discussion) 
He is currently enjoying a 4-1 kill ratio, which, on the surface doesn't
sound too bad (I'm keeping those stats on paper since the PvP rep bug(s)
reset it all the time)... However...
Here are some observational facts pertaining to this:
<ul type="square">[*] In a full evening (4-5 hours) of Stalking Bloody Bay, I get 5-
10 kills, and die once or twice... That's roughly 30-35 Minutes (on
average) of hunting between kills.[*] BU + AS will NOT 1-shot *anyone* currently with full health,
although it's close with defenders...[*] Without inspirations, many of my AS strikes MISS against players
with defenses (toggles, buffs and the like). When the target is solo, I
can always escape (so far) -- if the target is part of a team (depending
on size and makeup), I usually burn through all of my inspirations, and
frequently still die.[*] Of my 8 deaths (currently) ALL of them but 2 occurred against teams
(those other 2 were the result of skulking around the hero base) [*] Of my 31 Kills, only 1/4 were against teams (~ 1-1 Kill Ratio), and
the rest were against individuals (or perhaps paired duos)[*] It usually takes several minutes to set up a kill. I reserve 1/2 of my
inspiration tray to give me the best chance to do so (the other 1/2 of the
tray is for escape)[*] 1v1 melee with anyone but the most inexperienced PvP'rs is a losing
proposition for me -- I have *never* won a 1v1 (unhidden) melee fight
(I've never died to 1 either, but it was usually me being the one forced
to bail first)[*] For every kill I've gotten, I've usually missed 2-4 other attempts,
usually because the target saw me at the last second, or coincidentally
moved out of AS range, or in a couple cases was "rescued" by a hero
who could see me -- prompting my escape at the cost of multiple
inspirations.[*] In general, in Bloody Bay, I find that most individuals cannot (or do
not) see me until it is too late, and most teams usually DO see me
whenever I start to close in to set up an attack (I have Hide/Stealth).[/list]
That covers much of the 20-30 hours of PvP time I currently have on
my Stalker...
My Conclusions
<ul type="square">[*] I *like* this AT... I *enjoy* carefully finding, following a target, and
patiently waiting until the opportunity to strike. When I do those things
exactly right, with inspirations as part of the preparation process, I am
rewarded with a kill -- it costs me a bunch of time, and a fair amount of
infamy to ensure that reward[*]If my target selection is poor, or I get unlucky, it *still* costs me a
lot of time, even more inspirations, and usually a trip to the infirmary...[*]Given the relatively few kills I get per night, it's rare that I get the
same person more than once, and I've *never* (that I know of) gotten
anybody more than twice in the same night.[*]Given the sheer mulitude of things that can prevent a successful
attack from me, many are the potential targets I pass by, and nearly as
many are the ones who get away...[*] If it's presumed that my Stalker shouldn't be that kind of careful
hunter, I can't honestly think of any reason to play him in preference to
a Brute or some such other AT... For me, it is the patient, methodical
hunt, rewarded with the occasional kill that IS the point... This AT is the
cheetah hunting the antelope (all but one of the herd gets away), rather
than the pack of wolves who attack en masse...[/list]As always, YMMV - I hope they don't remove this AT's ability to do what
it does best... Yep, it IS a killer, but (imho) it's NOT a gamebreaker...
Flame Away Gents...
Regards,
4
I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is definitely better.
Light is faster than sound - that's why some people look smart until they speak.
For every seller who leaves the market dirty stinkin' rich,
there's a buyer who leaves the market dirty stinkin' IOed. - Obitus.
I have a lvl 25 stalker with 4So's and 1 rechare and 1 acc. Now with that many so's the rest are TO or like 10 lvls low(man i need infamy) I can drop controllers and defenders one hit with BU and have to hit the blaster one more time to finish the job so my kills per night skyrockected not unusally to get 30 kills in a sitting...like 4-5 hours especaily since i picked hover for pVp reasons, since alot of heroes think they are safe in the Air.
Now on the other hand i went to sirens call and had my behind handed to me 3 times by the same controller and killed by NPC's as i ran, dont plan on going back not worth the debt.
-Skorna
Victory
I've read through the player responses and of course none of them are surprising. Most, if not nearly all, fail to understand the motivation of the questions or the point of the examples e.g. the blaster phase shift situation is not statement about why Phase Shift was removed.
People want to turn this into a "whine" or a nerf call...none of which are true, but posters on these boards are overly protective of any advantage they do have or and aggressive againsts any posts that seeks to portrary it as unjustified. I can count on one hand the number of /Regen playing posters who said it was over-powered in I2. I recall being the only one to say /SR was way too good in I4 in PvE.
I'm interested in what the devs know to be true about stalker risk...not what they designed to be true. Unstoppable was designed to have a penalty that was supposed to balance it's use....but obviously what was expected to be true based on design, didn't turn out to be true in practice.
I'll pose as a rhetorical question to Castle that as the rep for Stalkers, allowing them to be overpowered would seem just as detrimental as allowing them to be underpowered. If the objective it so make sure that Stalkers are fun, the answer espoused by the devs as a team has been to increase the challenge...not remove it.
I shelfed my /SR for months before I4 because it had gotten boring. Missions were a joke. The slider came out and it was fun for about a week...and then I realized it was far too easy. At first, we saw the devs increase powers...then devs response to the problems in many cases was to reduce powers. In each case, I've enjoyed the game more when they increased the challenge. The best changes to the scrapper sets, IMO, were the ones that increased the challenge, not diminshed it. But it is important to target the reduction to the appropriate level/area of concern and not use a sledge hammer were a scalpel is required (that being said, I like ED for my Scrappers and Defenders). Obviously, there are people who would take Perma-Elude, I2 /Regen, and Perma-Unstoppable back in a heartbeat. I'm not one of them...and Cryptic seems to agree with me.
I'm not making any judgments on the general balance of Stalkers, despite what others might think. I'll point out things that seem unbalanced from where I sit, but I keep asking myself, "Self, what is this set suppoe to be able to do and not do?" I don't know what the "balanced" Stalker is suppose to look like in reality...I can see what is written on paper and like the huge endurance drain from old toggle IH, I see that savvy players have already figured out how to beat it.
I think a lot of those who play Stalker victims in this game would benefit from the devs giving us a much clearer picture of what kind of effect stalkers are supposed to have. How good are they suppose to be? Are solo toons expected to have to keep moving constantly or find teams in PvP Zones? Do you really expect Scrappers to take both Assault and Tactics if they want to solo? Is all of this part of your design or expectation? etc...etc...
But the question is not about how can I avoid Stalkers, it's about what the level of challenge and risk a Stalker is expected to experience..comparatively. Not the potential risk..the actual risk. How does the substantive risk compare to the substantive reward from the devs perspective?
EDIT:
Here's a perfect example of the nature of the answers that I am looking for. You said, in regards to changing Build Up
[ QUOTE ]
Right now, I don't see a need to change the Stalkers multiple, but datamining may show me that it needs to be improved.
[/ QUOTE ] What would tell you that it needs to be improved? What would tell you that it's too good?
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Or does your -valueless- post indicate acceptance with everything aforementioned, excepting of course that most trivial sentence?
[/ QUOTE ]
Not really, i just didnt think it was worth commenting on because Castle has already stated that they are changing the coding in game so that any PvP attack that would kill a player in one hit will instead leave them with 1hp. With that in mind almost the entirety of your post was better off ignored.
[/ QUOTE ]
Correction here. The 1hp threshhold is only one of the ideas being considered. We've still not determined exactly how we are going to deal with 'One Shot Kills' (and the final decision will almost certainly apply to both PVE and PVP -- so no more AV insta-kills.)
[/ QUOTE ]
Wow, that's obscene. I would swear in Beta it was clearly stated this would be a PvP change only.
[/ QUOTE ]
He means that whatever change is made to prevent stalkers from one-shotting a player, it would likely be extended to prevent AVs and other *NPCs* from also one-shotting players. It was specifically stated elsewhere that whatever was done wouldn't prevent *players* from one-shotting *non-players* in PvE; i.e. if you can one-shot a minion now, the change wouldn't prevent you from doing so when it went in.
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[ QUOTE ]
I think a lot of those who play Stalker victims in this game would benefit from the devs giving us a much clearer picture of what kind of effect stalkers are supposed to have. How good are they suppose to be? Are solo toons expected to have to keep moving constantly or find teams in PvP Zones? Do you really expect Scrappers to take both Assault and Tactics if they want to solo? Is all of this part of your design or expectation? etc...etc...
[/ QUOTE ]
Only a couple of questions for you Mieux. What do you feel is the relative risk that a Stalker must have to be balanced in PvP situations?
How safe should other AT's be if they are wandering through a zone oblivous to the fact that people with Stealth powers may be about?
If I as a Stalker decide only to hunt the NPS'c in a zone and completely ignore whether Heroes may be about how safe should I be? Should I have to keep moving to areas where there are no Heroes in the PvP zone so that I can go about my way oblivous to the fact that I am in a PvP zone?
And if I wander about a PvP zone as a Corrupter or Mastermind without taking any precautions about Stealthed Scrappers/Blasters being about should we look at ways of increasing the risk that those stealthed Scrappers/Blasters take when they defeat me?
What tests have you done on the actual risk level of Stalkers in a PvP zone? How long have you played your Stalker in PvP zones before you have decided that it is too easy for them and the difficulty should be ramped up and what targets have you taken on as a Stalker?
Stalkers did not invent the Stealth Kill - Blasters and Scrappers were doing it in the arena long before Stalkers were about.
Hello Mieux,
I've fought you before in BB as The Whispering Blade and have one shotted you with 6 rages and build up. Was that unfair?
I've now moved onto Siren's and while perched on a building with hide and stealth on, I had a Fire/device blaster tp me onto a pile of mines and caltrops and poof, there I went in one huge explosion. Did I have any recourse? Sure, it isn't technically one shot, but certainly one sided.
Should a developer step in and make changes to the game to prevent these situations?
I say no...
There are extremes on either end of PvP and by definition there will always be these extremes. On one side you have the quick, violent deaths above, and on the other you have 2 tanks duking it out for 5 minutes. I've seen and participated in both extremes as I have a level 50 tanker and I don't have an issue with these extremes.
You have to look at the typical engagments and decide what's an appropriate success rate.
Should a device blaster with tactics who sets up mines be able to kill any and all stalkers that stumble by? I say yes.
Should a stalker with hide and stealth always be able to 1 shot a defender admiring the sunrise? I say yes.
Should a Brute hopped up on Fury be one shotting white minions with his brawl? I hope so!
The only advantage a stalker really has is the ability to choose his battles. The only ability that lets him do that is being unseen. Players have multiple and more powerful ways to do that than he has to counter it. People in PvP will learn this through trial and error, both the sloppy stalker and the idle defender.
As a successful player in PvP, you have to be smart, cunning, and know when to run. The devs can't help you with any of that.
Please, let the process happen on it's own. In 1-2 months from now PvP will be mature and the highlights and lowlights of each AT will be very clear and action can be taken then. The devs really need to err on the side of restraint when making changes.
Mieux, I played a perma-unstoppable tanker and playing a stalker is not anywhere near that level of mindless "I win" mode, either in in PvP or PvE. If you don't believe me, please play one. You can get one up to level 15 by this weekend and I'll help you if you need it. Forum name is global.
The level of skill, patience, and craft required to play a stalker well is quite remarkable and refreshing in this game (PvP & PvE). It would be a shame to reduce it or buff it before it's matured.
OK just killed a scrapper with 3 reds and 2 insights with BU while he was surronded buy heroes i mean like 4-6 killed him burnt off..(100rep) i wanted it to be special someone called me cheap for doing that..just an example that people have diff views of what they think is fair so can't accomadate all..
should i have stayed at gotten my bottom handed to me by the mob of heroes?
should i have requested a duel with the scrapper?
what will please everyone
Skorna
victory
You're damn right British Lion, stealth is not new at all.
And for you Mieux, about the Risk versus reward thing..
I play an EM / Ninjutsu stalker, lv 29 atm.
I can assure you that the risk is GREAT compared to the reward. I do have Stealth + Hide , and i don't feel safe all 
hell, there are tons of people that can see me and negates the surprise effect and of course any attempt of AS'ing.
Look, Anyone with tactics + IR goggles (ALL ATs can have that, most good PvP builds has a +perception in it), CAN see stalkers normally, double stealth or not.. WE stalkers could ask where the hell is our advantage if EVERYONE can counter our speciality so easily ?
The more time passes, the more people get used to the game. normal. The fact is that already now, its very difficult to find people without enough perception to see a stalker, this is SO easy to overcome even double stealth..
So the reward is low, because you don't get nearly half the kills a damage AT could have in a pvp zone. And i know what i am talking about trust me, i got 3 blasters lv50, and everytime i go in a pvp zone with my PVP blasters, i get like 5 or 6 times more kills than with my Stalker.
The only consistent Reward for stalkers imo is Fun, and happiness to play a special playstyle. In PvE for example i often do the less possible killing to finish a mission, ninja style In PVP i'll try to disable the guy that is annoying to my team, or hell, only roaming around the enemy group i act like a big taunt ) my teamates are somewhat free to pwn everyone as they're all trying to get teh silly stalker that showed himself
Ya know, that kind of stuff
[ QUOTE ]
Look, Anyone with tactics + IR goggles (ALL ATs can have that, most good PvP builds has a +perception in it), CAN see stalkers normally, double stealth or not.. WE stalkers could ask where the hell is our advantage if EVERYONE can counter our speciality so easily ?
[/ QUOTE ]
I wholeheartedly agree. If anything Stalkers should be asking for a buff in this area. Outie and I consistently enter Siren's Call and Warburg only to find out how easy it is for people to see us, and weve mentioned our distaste for this in the past. On several occasions I've used Hide in conjunction with Combat Stealth and many people (individually and teamed) can still see me, and the same with Hyper Stealth.
I've found that, in PvP, Hide alone is not of much benefit to me because it's far too easy for someone to use any combination of Tactics, IR Goggles, Clear Mind, Cloak of Darkness, Targeting Drone, etc. to completely negate it point-blank.
I'm not going to argue one-shot kills in PvP because I can understand it not being fun for my opponents. However, this Stealth versus Perception "arms race" is no contest. Assassins require the benefit of the shadows first, and my experiences prove that this is nullified quite easily.
[ QUOTE ]
they can basically kill most things even if those things can see them.
[/ QUOTE ]
LOL! Now I KNOW you've never played a stalker. We can hardly kill ANYTHING if it sees us coming! Heck, the high majority of the time we get an AS off unseen we STILL have to run away or stand and die.
I am so tired of listening to people who have no idea in hell about playing a stalker complain because they died a few times. Do you know how hard it is for us to find someone like you who neglected to take any anti-stalker skills? A long time. Is it our fault you have a weakness and we use it?
Imagine you're a dominator, and 80% of everyone you try to hold/root/etc has break frees or resists so you can't land it in the 1st place.... welcome to our world.
Z
[ QUOTE ]
I've fought you before in BB as The Whispering Blade and have one shotted you with 6 rages and build up.
[/ QUOTE ] Hey Voyeur. I was wondering how you did that. You were the only one to defeat me that day IIRC. You hit me for over 500 on the crit alone. I figured I had been wounded or maybe the global dmg resistance thing was severely in your favor. I had a blast chasing you guys around and goating you to chase me around. I recall there were like six of you guys swarming the water like sharks.
As for the rest of your post, you're missing the point of my questions. But thanks for the offer to help me level my Stalker. I will look you up to fight your Stalker once you get him up to lvl 33 or higher.
[ QUOTE ]
People want to turn this into a "whine" or a nerf call...none of which are true
[/ QUOTE ]
If this was really true, then a simple post asking Castle if the devs see stalkers as basically balanced would have been enough. A PM to Castle would have been even better if you really didn't care what other players thought. Or you could have played one and followed the discussions in the beta boards up to now. Or you might consider actually listening to real stalkers instead of dismissing them all as "just not getting it."
But attempting to play "I'm neutral, I just have a question" when your questions and observations are:
[ QUOTE ]
What is interesting is that the Stalker AT is predicated on ganking.
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I am unaware of any AT power that doesn't have some counter in another AT without resorting to power pools...And yet, nothing resists Placate.
[/ QUOTE ]
Which is false, btw.
[ QUOTE ]
No solo AT can achieve the invisilibty of Stalkers, so should Stalkers be the only set that doesn't have to constantly be looking over its shoulder for fear of some hero?
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
in absolutely none of those situations could I have defeated the Stalker if they had decided to check out early. And ...I was defeated far more times by Stalkers that stuck around than I defeated.
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
but posters on these boards are overly protective of any advantage they do have or and aggressive againsts any posts that seeks to portrary it as unjustified.
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'll pose as a rhetorical question to Castle that as the rep for Stalkers, allowing them to be overpowered would seem just as detrimental as allowing them to be underpowered.
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I can see what is written on paper and like the huge endurance drain from old toggle IH, I see that savvy players have already figured out how to beat it.
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
think a lot of those who play Stalker victims in this game would benefit from the devs giving us a much clearer picture of what kind of effect stalkers are supposed to have.
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Are solo toons expected to have to keep moving constantly or find teams in PvP Zones? Do you really expect Scrappers to take both Assault and Tactics if they want to solo?
[/ QUOTE ]
But of course, it wouldn't be a Mieux post if it didn't call everyone who either disagreed with him or didn't fully agree with his point an idiot:
[ QUOTE ]
I've read through the player responses and of course none of them are surprising. Most, if not nearly all, fail to understand the motivation of the questions or the point of the examples
[/ QUOTE ]
I understood the point perfectly. I think a lot of other people got it too, which is why the responses are what they are.
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[ QUOTE ]
Risk versus reward, stalkers have absolutely pathetic defenses, no resists whatsoever, and no holds/soft controls or anything except for a single placate that takes a very long time to recharge.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's actually not all true. I've been PvPing every night for the past week with my MA/Regen scrapper. Without fail, every night I have duked it out with at least one Stalker. Their defenses aren't bad, not scrapper worthy but still not bad. Their Mez protection, however, is far better than my own with Integration running. I've hit every Stalker I've faced - repeatedly - with Cobra Strike (four slotted: 1 +acc SO, 3 Disorient duration SOs). I've not ONCE stunned a Stalker with that power, a power that never fails to stun a Lt that cons red to me. Perhaps this is a bug with Cobra Strike or perhaps a bug in the Stalker resistance tables or perhaps I just have bloody rotten luck. I dunno. All I know is that I'm connecting with them and they're getting away without any problem whatsoever.
Makes playing MA, a set that focuses on status effects, very aggravating in PvP.
Okay,
I'm looking at your post and it is hard to find the questions so I'll just look for the question marks. In the future if you want the devs to really pay attention, a few bullet points goes a long way for enticing a response.
Also, instead of making blanket or nebulous statements that it 'seems improbable that the devs would 100% nail the 'balance' of the stalker at in PvP right out of the gate,' you give specific examples that we can focus on and fix ASAP since your statement 'offers little clarity.'
#1 Your first question deals with the conflict between not balancing 1v1 and then having an AT that is 'meant' to take on just one target.
- Well, I'm not sure the stalker is any different than my EM tank with stealth when it comes to 1v1. My tank has exactly 1 aoe and my stalker has exactly 1 cone (2 actually but meh). What I'm trying to figure out is how my nin/nin stalker is anymore designed for 1v1 than my EM tank or kat/regen scrapper?
#2 Your question 2 deals with 'ganking' attacks which I'm assuming are hit and run tactics and how blasters lost that ability with PS being changed so why should stalkers have it?
-Castle himself endorses hit and run as a tactic. Hit and run is no different than port-and-smash, or fear-and-crush, or drain-and-flush, or etc... It's a tactic. Just like safety-in-numbers and run-like-hell. My ar/dev blaster can gank as well as my stalker because she has cloaking device, stealth, targetting drone, and tactics. Not to mention mines and caltrops and 2 stunning attacks. Who has the upper hand between my stalker and my blaster? My blaster hands down.
#3 Your third questions asks about whether placate will get any sort of resists. You assume because all other powers have counters, placate needs a counter.
-It seems others more knowledgeable have asserted that there are already resists to it though I can't verify this. But really, it lasts 10 seconds and any teammate or npc can break it very easily; also caltrops, (do pets?), aoe's, good timing all help. I think that's sufficient. There are so few counters to slows and fears which affect multiple people at one time that placate is very minor in comparison.
#4 You ask who counters the stalker.
-I know that device blasters with tactics have the advantage most of the time as well as hot footed/lighting fielded blasters; plus they have range! I know all stormies are an automatic pass on my list of targets. I know all people who keep moving are impossible. Anyone who flies has an advantage. Anyone who is in a team where 2 people are running tactics.
I think you are over-estimating stalkers abilities and being unfair by comparing them to Perma-Unstoppable/Elude/Mog/IH. As I said before, I played a PU tanker and a stalker is no where in the neighborhood of invincibility either in PvP or PvE. There is no compensation that Stalkers are doing that compares to the circumvention in perma-powers. If I stack hide+stealth, you stack targeting drone with tactics and you win. This is something you may only believe if you play one and my offer still stands.
You mention that you beat stalkers (1v1 I'm assuming?) only when they:
a. Didn't use enough rages to one shot you.
-Well, that's been around for a very long time and it is available to anyone, moreso to heroes with influence to burn. The rages mostly help burst damage types like scrappers, blasters, and stalkers and EM tankers. The inspirations all have counters so is this really an issue? If people are buring rages to hit you, you can be constantly burning lucks as well, just burn one every minute if you like. I burn 6 rages in 2 seconds and sometimes have them wasted by a fleeing or moving target. I only had 10 slots too so I'd always have to recharge for a kill
b. You only killed them when they stuck around and fought while you were playing regen.
-Seems like you answered #4. YOU are the counter. If you add tactics to your character and have SR you have nothing to worry about.
Let me ask you this...how often are YOU defeated in SC and by whom? Since you are SR, I'm assuming it's by blasters with build up or people who pop accuracy inspirations? Perhaps debuffing toggles? Same as me! The number of people who counter your build I think are fewer than the number that counter my build but I don't really know. I mean, what pool power really boosts their to-hit enough to negate your secondary?
I hope you respect the fact that this is the longest post I've ever made and that you address it. I made a concerted effort to honestly look at each of your points. I'd be very disappointed if you reply by saying I'm missing the 'larger issue' or the 'underlying motivations' of you or the devs.
If you fundamentally do not agree with the devs' decision to have this AT in the game at all then that is something entirely different and personal than having it be 'imbalanced'. I'd imagine that having such a unique and potentially controversial AT the devs would have looked at Stalkers the MOST compared to all others and made sure there were enough counters, both on paper and in practice.
I umm... Used the stalker-playstyle quite extensively in Issue-4's Arenas... This was before Invisability power defenses got nerfed so I usually made a clean escape on my chosen build for such endeavors. And I dont believe we can look at this yet as an "Over-All" thing. We need to focus on the finest details only for now, it's too early to come to any major conclusions on balance.
But I really want to post to say that while Mieux's been the only user I've ever put on ignore here, I have to admit he's got some points on this one that nearly all of you are just writing off as if it's impossible for it to even happen. ...Or worse, if it was no longer allowed, then your whole AT would be devastated. You guys should know by now this is not a valid debating tactic. Devices and Regen was a 1-trick pony too at one time.
Dancing on both sides of the fence like many of you are, only wastes time, and may not even delay the innevitable. That's why I implore you to "police yourselves" and openly talk about areas where your Reward(DPS while adjacent to your Enemy) exceeds your Risk(Vulnerability while in a wider proximity of your enemies) and TEST out the other options you have that can ween you from the "1 trick pony" routine. If testing with hard numbers proves that those options fail to compensate for the loss of your primary tactic (Much like how Fast Healing, Integration, Resilience, and now Dull-Pain were all buffed), then the Devs will be much more likely to compensate you properly when they innevitably change things to ensure a broader use of powers.
You all know this happened to every other AT in some way. So prepare for it instead of attacking everyone who even suggests a need for changes.
(Disclaimer: Ilr DOES NOT see conclusive need for major changes yet, especially to 1-shotting which is the most thrilling part of facing stalkers in combat, and is instead going to quietly support Castle's conclusions until there is serious proof to do otherwise)
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I hope you respect the fact that this is the longest post I've ever made and that you address it.
[/ QUOTE ] I respect the effort and am appreciative of your concern. I'll shoot you a PM.
I apologise for my earlier vitriolic post proclaiming your ideas as stupid, I have just seem too many classes/archetypes/characters destroyed by overly enthusiastic cries from the vocal minority that are angry that 'they cannot do it'
I will instead address the comments one at a time.
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1) When the Arena first came out, Positron said he wasn't overly concerned with the 1v1 battles because it was too much of a rock/papers/scissors affair. How do we reconcile the dev philosophy that 1v1 can't be balanced and yet make sense of a toon that is designed for 1v1 combat? How does one side-step 1v1 balance on one hand and then appropriately balance an entire AT for it on another?
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In what way are stalkers designed for 1v1 combat? in the arena, where there is a stalker, I pop two yellows and turn him into hamburger for two minutes. I play an ill/rad controller, arguably a weaker PVP build, and most stalker builds are like wheat before a scythe (The only exception for me is energy, but then I think that they should even out the damage of the sets a little, raise lethals a bit and lower energy a bit)
Tankers in a 1v1 battle? not a chance the stalker will win. 1v1 means you KNOW you are dealing with a stalker.
anyone that has played in the zones ALSO knows that you keep moving. I have yet to have a stalker be able to gank me if I kept moving, the few times I have died was when I chased one right into an ambush or screwed up and stopped moving. and controllers do NOT get any sort of defense against ANY status effects unless they take the (pool based) acrobatics ability.
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2) The Arena is a situation where neither toon can leave the battle. Players, blasters in particular, were using Phase Shift to effectively gank and escape and the devs put a stop to it. Clearly ganking was not to be tolerated. What is interesting is that the Stalker AT is predicated on ganking. Its speciality is the 1v1 battle with the escape. Why take that ability away from blasters in consensual battles but promote and endorse it in another AT in non-consensual battles?
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The issue was for a ranged character to be able to 'gank' with almost no risk of reprisal. As statesman has stated, 'range is defense' and when you have a flying character there are going to be many situations where a melee character has virtually no chance to reply. 'gank and escape' was not the biggest issue, the biggest issue was blasters that could lay on heavy fire with absolutely no chance of a reply in kind. Stalkers make themselves vulnerable and especially REACHABLE after they attack, and even with heavy inspiration use this will often result in their deaths.
Also there is NOTHING non-consensual about being in a PVP zone. if you are there, you are taking the risk. the badges can be gotten with a minimum of PVP risk and there is nothing in the game that says that you ever have to leave the vicinity of the police drones to continue a quest ANYWHERE.
Now, if you want to complain about people TPPing foes out of the police zones and ganking them, fine, that is a reprehensible tactic and could be considered 'griefing' nerf that all you like.
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3) I am unaware of any AT power that doesn't have some counter in another AT without resorting to power pools. Defender buffs are unresistable, but yet people can buff themseves beyond those debuffs a la Fort, Build-Up, etc. Blasters have some unresistable damage, but the majority of it is resistable. Every status power has some opposing power that resists it. Fear, Holds, Sleep, even Slows, have their counters within the players very powers themselves. Even Taunt in PvP is not 100%. And yet, nothing resists Placate. Yes, I understand you can knock someone out of it...provding you somehow manage to trigger an attack that launched before Placate takes affect and hits after (you can't honestly say this is an expected skill). Or, you can launch a PBAoE and hope to hit, provided you have one. But this isn't resistance to the statusing power like every other status power has. Are there plans to offer the other sets resistance to Placate e.g. Give Clear Mind, Integration, Practiced Brawler, Ind Will, etc?
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You seem to overestimate the effectiveness of placate. it is not an offensive power, it is technically a defensive one. it literally simply gives the stalkers the effect of invisibility for ten seconds.
yes, stalkers can take advantage of it, and use it as AS, or simply run like hell. but I have yet to have my teleport or defenses or toggles dropped by placate. if you get placated, run away for a second until it wears off.
Is there any defense against the toggle-drop effect of brawl? not that I have seen, and brawl has KILLED invulnerable tankers. trust me, I have done it.
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3) It seems that the AT's in CoH have their foils in CoV. And vice versa. Who is the foil for a Stalker? Who can consistently solo defeat Stalkers who do not want to be defeated to the same extent that they can defeat any solo AT that doesn't want to be defeated? ...I'm reading that Stalkers can one-shot tanks in BB and Siren's with enough Rages. No solo AT can achieve the invisilibty of Stalkers, so should Stalkers be the only set that doesn't have to constantly be looking over its shoulder for fear of some hero?
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controllers can consistently defeat stalkers. they don't do it the same way, but controllers typically tear through stalkers easily, or at least I do. in two days I have torn apart 23 stalkers in siren's call and only died twice to them, both times to the same one, both times because I was standing outside his base taunting him to come out and play and forgot to pay attention to the water ripples, my own fault.
and on the second factor, yes, plenty of AT's can still stack invis. Group invis/concealment is a perfect example (yes, my stalker hunting build) and seems to work quite nicely even after I drop a pack of decoys. yes, I have to click in superior invis, but I reconceal a LOT faster than a stalker ever can hope to.
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Again, my question is not about is this too much or not enough, but how you and the devs perceive the balance and most importantly, how the off-setting weaknesses are actually substantive. What do I mean by that? Geko stated that one of the reasons that they turned IH back into a click is that they could not balance it as a toggle. They had meant for it to have a great healing benefit, and thought the huge endurance drain would compensate. But players proved they could avoid this penalty by six slotting QR and Stamina. So the penalty, though substantial...was not substantive. The same thing was said about Perma-Unstoppable. People were compensating for the crash, so there was not substantive penalty. It existed on paper, but was easily compensated for in-game. People talk about toons with damaging auras are proof against Hide...but I recall you explicity saying you were able to crit a Fire Brute...through BA and defeat him.
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No, just because you conceal your point within the bounds of aquestion that you are clearly using to point a certain direction, does not mean that people on this board will see it as anything other than a blatant call to the devs to nerf something that you, yourself, find daunting, the task of defeating an invisible killer. Do you use cheats on a game you just bought? Do you find and exploit every loophole within the game to make yourself overpoweringly potent without ever trying to do things the 'hard way'? I know I don't, and I certainly hope you don't. Stalkers are exactly as challenging to certain builds as tankers are or blasters or scrappers or anything else. I have never been able to beat a regen scrapper one on one (although I can fight them to a standstill or run them so low on end they run, if I have my wits about me ) Tankers are just a waste of energy, and fellow controllers are just an exercise in who popped the most purples and yellows before we start chucking holds. first one hit, loses. blasters I can take pretty easily, defenders are another exercise in popping inspirations, dominators are my praying they are not full of dominance, corrupters are just like blasters, and stalkers are a fun and interesting challenge.
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I think it would help a lot of the players if you explain how the devs perceive the AT is balanced in PvP and how that actually plays out in PvP...not how it plays out theoritically.
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meaning you think that the devs have absolutely no clue as to how a given archetype operates. please, really.
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For all the Pro-Stalkers posters out there. I like Stalkers. I like the element that the AT brings to CoH. The joy in defeating them is almost as enjoyable as beating blasters. I also have defeated Stalkers with my Scrappers 1v1, so I'm not even protending that Stalkers are invincible. My lvl 33 has defeated a lvl 40 Stalker in Warburg...several times. But each and every defeat of a stalker was only a result:
1) they simply chose not to use enough Rages to one shot me.
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Yeah, and the blaster behind you didn't either
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2) They stuck around for the fight.
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You chose to stick around for the fight. everyone can run, not just stalkers.
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3) I was playing a /regen
In absolutely none of those situations could I have defeated the Stalker if they had decided to check out early. And ...I was defeated far more times by Stalkers that stuck around than I defeated. So it wasn't like I sailed to victory. I'm not asking for any changes. I'm asking for an understanding from the devs for how this AT fits within the context of PvP from a substantive Risk vs Reward model.
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if you are asking for understanding from the devs, how about you ask for an explanation of how stalkers are supposed to work, instead of this, 'does your mother know you prefer your own sex?' type of question?
What the whole post boils down to is you saying, "apparently if you actually PLAYED the game instead of just building it, you would understand how incredibly overpowered stalkers are... Can you explain what made you come to the obviously false conclusion that stalkers are balanced?"
I think you'd probably have been better off leaving off the flowery language and making your point directly, instead of trying to conceal a huge nerf request within a smokescreen of intellectualism and psuedo-factoids.
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I don't believe for a second that it is an easy task to balance this type of AT for PvP, so I'm certainly not recusing the devs even one bit, I am trying to understand it from their perspective.
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meaning 'I want to see things from your point of view' but in the context of this entire post 'but I can't get my head that far up my butt'
Please just say it. or better yet, PM it to a dev so the rest of us never know that you are trying to sell us up the river for your personal aggrandizement.
Holy Moly, Sorry for the rant. I just remember what happened to druids back when sony 'listened to their playerbase'
Took them almost 2 years to realize what a stupid idea it was.
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Holy Moly, Sorry for the rant
[/ QUOTE ] lol..hey man..it's bulletin board...no worries.
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Or does your -valueless- post indicate acceptance with everything aforementioned, excepting of course that most trivial sentence?
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Not really, i just didnt think it was worth commenting on because Castle has already stated that they are changing the coding in game so that any PvP attack that would kill a player in one hit will instead leave them with 1hp. With that in mind almost the entirety of your post was better off ignored.
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Correction here. The 1hp threshhold is only one of the ideas being considered. We've still not determined exactly how we are going to deal with 'One Shot Kills' (and the final decision will almost certainly apply to both PVE and PVP -- so no more AV insta-kills.)
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Okay.. question.
I'm not going to argue the merits or drawbacks of playing a stalker, all in all, I feel they're quite balanced for what they're designed to do. If anything, their weakness lay in their lack of versatility strategically, but are massively good at the "thing they do".
Now, on more than one occasion in PvP, I have been in the middle of a PvE combat in a PvP zone and get ganked by a Stalker. I get that it's all in fair play and fun- after all, that's what they do best. If I'm distracted by a mob of PvE opponents, that's a great time to sneak in and whack me, strategically speaking.
The downside is that if they don't kill me right off, then there's a big chance (and it's happened more than once now) that the damage is so extreme that the next hit from any one of the PvE opponenets I'm in combat with smacks me, takes me out, and I get debt.
I don't care that the Stalker "ganks" me when I'm at a disadvantage like that (I would gladly do the same thing if I were playing my Stalker-that's how they work best) but I really don't like the idea of getting debt because, in essence, the Stalker didn't finish me off first.
If that 1hp threshold comes to pass, then this will be an even more frequent complaint, and while some Stalkers will cause debt unwittingly, I can imagine some would do it just for "griefing" purposes (I have already ran across one that was doing it purposely for just that reason- and a few others that "may" have been, but am willing to count them as "accidents")
My question is this.
What plans, if any, are in the pipes to prevent accidental, or purposeful debt being accured by PvE deaths contributed to or caused by PvP elements like I mentioned above?
A suggestion I would make is that you have a "debt-free" death period for a small ammount of time (like 10 seconds) after the last attack from a PvP "hit" occurs. This will give the wounded toon time to heal, or failing that be killed by a PvE element without incurring debt.
Additionally, to be fair, I would give credit to the "kill" based on the ammount of HP in damage done. If the Stalker in the above scenario ganked me while I was in the middle of a PvE fight, and did the lion's share of the damage that got me killed, he (or she) should get the credit for being sneaky/ strategic enough to have taken advantage of my distraction. After all, I wouldn't have fallen if they didn't attack me.
I have no problem with PvP if there's no debt, but the way the zones are designed, it happens sometimes by accident or design. Are there plans to fix that?
"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.
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Believe me,your experiences to date are only because you must be new to PVP. ANyone who has been out there fighting has already nerfed the one trick pony that are stalkers....
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Sorry, but that can also be easily rewritten as:
You must be new to PvP in CoV. Everyone else who has experience has realized that to PvP you must design your characters so that they can fight Stalkers.
In my opinion, when one AT is forcing the other ATs to either set up their power choices so that they can handle the one AT, or else to avoid PvP, something is broken.
You say that there are methods to deal with Stalkers? Fine. I disagree with the contention that these methods are great, but certainly there are methods that make you a relatively difficult target.
My problem is that we have to redesign characters for these methods. We do not have to redesign to deal with Tanks, or Brutes, or Scrappers, or Dominators, or Controllers. But we do have to redesign to deal with Stalkers. And by "deal", I do mean "to not be an easy one-shot kill". Not necessarily to defeat. You can redesign all you want, if a Stalker wants to get away, they will get away. But at least you can redesign to survive.
That's broken. When Controllers were in a situation where other ATs would have had to redesign in order to avoid being perma-held until death, the problem was solved by the Devs.
...Break Frees
...Suppression
Where is the Dev solution to the Stalkers? There isn't one. The only solutions are player-made, and that means that in order to survive in PvP, you need to design your character and/or your teams so that you can survive Stalkers. Doing anything less is just invitation to being repeatedly one-shotted until you give in and either redesign, or give up PvP.
There is something broken in Denmark. And it's rotting.
The purpose, design, and goal of the AT is bad. The AT is designed around one-shotting opponents, around avoiding opponents when they want to avoid them. That design is completely broken in PvP. So either it's allowed to continue according to design (which is unfair to the other ATs), or it's prevented from continuing according to design, which is unfair to Stalkers. When a design is set up so that it's either unfair to the AT or to the other ATs, something was designed wrongly.
IMO, Stalkers need their concept re-examined. Invisible one-shotting character is not a concept that works in a PvP game.
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Or does your -valueless- post indicate acceptance with everything aforementioned, excepting of course that most trivial sentence?
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Not really, i just didnt think it was worth commenting on because Castle has already stated that they are changing the coding in game so that any PvP attack that would kill a player in one hit will instead leave them with 1hp. With that in mind almost the entirety of your post was better off ignored.
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Correction here. The 1hp threshhold is only one of the ideas being considered. We've still not determined exactly how we are going to deal with 'One Shot Kills' (and the final decision will almost certainly apply to both PVE and PVP -- so no more AV insta-kills.)
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Wow, that's obscene. I would swear in Beta it was clearly stated this would be a PvP change only.