Please Devs can you widen melee cones a little?
By
Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2006-05-16 08:48 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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If I was going to advocate any change to SM at all, it would be to speed its activation/running time up a bit. And hey, Castle, since activation times aren't factored into those attack balancing equations (like they ought to be), what do you say? Slightly faster SM, call it even?
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Actually - animation times are part of the factor in balance equation, although Castle left it out.
They admitted that claws was underperforming in some areas, and what did they do to balanace it out? Shortent he animations
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HO's increasing Range was a bug.
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I thought that when cone range enhancements were combined with range enhancements that this was applied to HO's too. Or, was the cone enhancement removed altogether from all enhancements?
YMMV---IMO
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If I was going to advocate any change to SM at all, it would be to speed its activation/running time up a bit. And hey, Castle, since activation times aren't factored into those attack balancing equations (like they ought to be), what do you say? Slightly faster SM, call it even?
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Actually - animation times are part of the factor in balance equation, although Castle left it out.
They admitted that claws was underperforming in some areas, and what did they do to balanace it out? Shortent he animations
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no, they only did that because it fit the theme of claws. otherwise, it is not a standard balance point at all.
to improve the DPS of claws, they could do one of two things.
1. give more damage to powers with very low dps, in claws case, this meant long animations.
2. shorten those animations
claws is obviously not about the big hitters and in order to properly increase the DPS to where they wanted it, they would have had to make swipe and slash into monster attacks, broadsword end of set type damage. that obviously wasn't an option. so they went with lower times.
i promise you, they do not take animations into account for balance 95% of the time. The rule is "whatever looks cool".
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HO's increasing Range was a bug.
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I thought that when cone range enhancements were combined with range enhancements that this was applied to HO's too. Or, was the cone enhancement removed altogether from all enhancements?
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none of these powers ever took cone enhancements. The powers that this was a poblem for, shadow maul, slice, evis, HS, GD, ripper are all fixed melee cones. a few(HS, GD, SM) have slightly longer ranges. they were never ever meant to be enhanced or buffed.
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The thing is that the cones as they are currently are not balanced for the maximum amount of targets they can hit. It seems to me that by looking at the endurance and recharge of these powers, they are balanced to hit 1.5 foes in average.
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devian, you are correct.
shadow maul, eviscerate, ripper, headsplitter, golden dragonfly
these are balanced strictly as single target attacks. their tiny cones are icing on otherwise great powers. if they really started balancing these attacks as cones, trust me, none of you would like it at all.
true cones, of which we have very little access to as scrappers, are balanced in terms of 1.5 targets.
if they did widen the HS cone, how'd you like a new end cost of 20.28 end and a recharge time of 22.125s? pass.
for shadow maul, the 8s recharge and 8.528 cost would jump to 18s and 16.848 end. pass again.
the only true cones are Slice and Flashing Steel.
these attacks are AoEs and are balanced for 2.6 targets on average.
shockwave, throw spines, spin, whirling sword, lotus drops, dragon's tail
treat the small cones as a bonus you don't have to pay for, not an essential use of the power.
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Good info, S_F. I agree - don't change SM. It's not hard to get 2 lined up in about one sec:
CTRL-Tab, Tab, F, F and then shift a little left or right.
That targets the nearest enemy, then the next closest, turns toward the target and then stops moving (F to follow very quickly followed by F to stop following) to get basically lined up, then just step a little left or right if needed to make sure the near enemy is between you and the target. Assuming 2 enemies are both within range of SM and fairly close together (which is the norm in most solo missions I run and almost always possible in teamed missions), I routinely get 2, and often enough get 3 or 4 enemies. Please don't rebalance this power to take in to account the efficiency some folks have with that little cone. SM as it works now is what makes me love all my DM/ scrappers, and what especially makes my DM/Rgn such a fast soloer for me.
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Personally, I have an easier time hitting multiple targets with Headsplitter than I do with Shadow Maul -- part due to the fact I play Broadsword for almost two years now, but also part due to Headsplitter's cone being a slight "line" as opposed to Shadow Mauls width. If targets are standing behind eachother, it's extremely simple to hit the one in the back while hitting the one in the front too (Headsplitter allows a 'larger' distance between both targets than SM does).
Still, I think Headsplitter's cone is just the cherry on top of an already awesome power. Even without any form of cone, Headsplitter would be a most brutal attack. I would not consider Shadow Maul without its cone as such. Shadow Maul's animation can feel so tediously long, that *not* hitting more than one target is almost not worth it.
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Yeah, I love Headsplitter and Golden Dragonfly. I have over a year worth of experience with them and it takes me no time to line up the cone - no time as in stalker-placates-me-while-I'm-fighting-a-brute-and-I-turn-around-and-hit-him-through-the-brute =P
I usually use the closest enemy as my target/pivot point though, since the cone is narrower at the bottom.
Also noteworthy is that the damage/end/recharge of both HS and GD are balanced assuming they're only going to hit 1 target all the time, as mentioned by SF.
Shadow Maul on the other hand actually has a discount in terms of both recharge and endurance usage (also mentioned by SF), which are equal to BS->Hack. Granted, the animation is a bit long, although it isn't really much longer than Headsplitter. As we know, the animation time was not considered for balance at the very beginning of the game, hence we saw the tweaks to Katana, MA, and Claws.
Looking at Spines though, however, we see that Ripper is actually balanced a cone attack. Why is that? Because if you look at Spines attacks, the toxic DoT component is considered bonus. Lunge has a damage scale of 1 and a recharge of 4 seconds, in line with BS->Slash. Same situation when we look at Impale vs. BS->Hack. The current incarnation of Claws->Eviscerate is also balanced as a cone, but as we know it is getting a huge discount in I7.
PBAoEs are actually balanced for 3.5 targets in term of recharge and 2.5 targets in term of endurance usage. MA->Dragon Tail and Claws->Spin (pre-I7) both confirm this, and if we consider the lethal DoT component on the swords' as bonus, they match the pattern as well. The only odd man here is Spines->Spine Burst, and I have no explanation for that.
PS. I miss being able to chop a whole row of Nemesis robots in PI >.>
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Looking at Spines though, however, we see that Ripper is actually balanced a cone attack. Why is that? Because if you look at Spines attacks, the toxic DoT component is considered bonus. Lunge has a damage scale of 1 and a recharge of 4 seconds, in line with BS->Slash. Same situation when we look at Impale vs. BS->Hack. The current incarnation of Claws->Eviscerate is also balanced as a cone, but as we know it is getting a huge discount in I7.
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i don't know what they did for ripper and evis actually. they seem to be balanced as half a cone really. that's the closest the numbers get anyway.
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PBAoEs are actually balanced for 3.5 targets in term of recharge and 2.5 targets in term of endurance usage. MA->Dragon Tail and Claws->Spin (pre-I7) both confirm this, and if we consider the lethal DoT component on the swords' as bonus, they match the pattern as well. The only odd man here is Spines->Spine Burst, and I have no explanation for that.
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no, it's 2.5 for end and 2.6 for recharge.
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I still dont see where the problem is on this _castle_, there is a limit as to how many we can hit anyways so what difference does it make? Widening the cone just makes it where we dont have to actually use an exploit to get some utility out of a power with a high end cost.
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except the powers don't have a high end cost, at least, no higher than demanded by their damage. so there is no necessity in the use of the cone. it's a bonus, a free bonus.
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I'd like the melee cones to be an untargeted attack like the AoE melee attacks e.g. Footstomp and Solar Flare.
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What would be great would be some sort of visual indicator showing exactly which mobs were in the area of effect. Come to think of it this would be useful for many powers. I can't count the number of times I've used a cone or aoe power thinking I got all the mobs only to find out after that I missed a few on the fringes.
Not sure how/if something like this would be possible given the game mechanics, but I can dream, can't I?
And for the record the reason I find it difficult to get more than one mob in shadow maul isn't because I don't know how to line them up, but because they often won't get close enough together, especially while soloing or on small teams. No matter how good you are at lining them up in front of you if the AI refuses to group them close enough together you'll never hit them all.
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I'd like the melee cones to be an untargeted attack like the AoE melee attacks e.g. Footstomp and Solar Flare.
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I dunno, I kind of like being able to click Ripper and hit follow and have it not go off until it's in range. Of course, Spines has other AoE options, inclueding some that do work as you describe, so I might feel differently with another set.
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i don't know what they did for ripper and evis actually. they seem to be balanced as half a cone really. that's the closest the numbers get anyway.
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That's about right. Ripper has a base damage just slightly higher than Hack (1.70 vs 1.64), while its recharge and endurance usage are 1.375x and 1.293x, respectively. In other words, it is balanced for 1.324 and 1.247 targets. Eviscerate as it is currently has a slight discount when compared to Ripper.
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PBAoEs are actually balanced for 3.5 targets in term of recharge and 2.5 targets in term of endurance usage. MA->Dragon Tail and Claws->Spin (pre-I7) both confirm this, and if we consider the lethal DoT component on the swords' as bonus, they match the pattern as well. The only odd man here is Spines->Spine Burst, and I have no explanation for that.
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no, it's 2.5 for end and 2.6 for recharge.
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Not counting Spine Burst and all the DM ones, all scrapper PBAoEs are damage scale 1 (again ignoring the lethal DoT of the swords') the same as Slash. They recharge in 14 seconds. Compared to Slash's 4 seconds, that's 3.5 times as long.
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Not counting Spine Burst and all the DM ones, all scrapper PBAoEs are damage scale 1 (again ignoring the lethal DoT of the swords') the same as Slash. They recharge in 14 seconds. Compared to Slash's 4 seconds, that's 3.5 times as long.
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that doesn't mean it's balanced for an attack that does 3.5 times as much damage though. it's not in a 1:1 ration like that. you can't just take a ratio of the times.
dmg = (rchrg*.16)+.36
rchrg = 14
(14*.16)+.36 = 2.6
rchrg = 4
(4*.16)+.36 = 1
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If I was going to advocate any change to SM at all, it would be to speed its activation/running time up a bit. And hey, Castle, since activation times aren't factored into those attack balancing equations (like they ought to be), what do you say? Slightly faster SM, call it even?
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually - animation times are part of the factor in balance equation, although Castle left it out.
They admitted that claws was underperforming in some areas, and what did they do to balanace it out? Shortent he animations
[/ QUOTE ]
no, they only did that because it fit the theme of claws. otherwise, it is not a standard balance point at all.
to improve the DPS of claws, they could do one of two things.
1. give more damage to powers with very low dps, in claws case, this meant long animations.
2. shorten those animations
claws is obviously not about the big hitters and in order to properly increase the DPS to where they wanted it, they would have had to make swipe and slash into monster attacks, broadsword end of set type damage. that obviously wasn't an option. so they went with lower times.
i promise you, they do not take animations into account for balance 95% of the time. The rule is "whatever looks cool".
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Just to amplify, I think that *some* devs think about animations, and all of them realize that they have *some* effect, but there are two things being talked about here:
1. The devs have explicit equations that dictate the precise numbers for recharge and endurance burn, given a particular amount of damage for an attack.
2. It takes an act of God to break them.
So while no one was saying MA was "broken" because its powers did not fit the equation, they changed them to fit. In my opinion, they significantly weakened the set and homogenized it when they did it, but frankly - and I tend not to say things like this - I think whoever made the final call didn't give a crap that it did.
Claws has an Act of God exemption: it was stated that Claws was explicitly designed with certain "inherent bonuses" in end cost and speed, which S_F was able to determine it did not actually have in fact - which is how he was able to draw attention to "fixing" claws. Claws wasn't broken in the sense of being unplayable, it was broken in the sense of not following the very rules the devs (apparently) follow almost to the point being slaves to them.
Animation times are not a part of those set in stone rules. So when Claws was adjusted, Castle was free to - within reason - adjust them. This doesn't happen often not because there are balance issues, but actually because the current game engine requires an animator completely redo the attack animations, and apparently attack animations are crafted by one guy in a basement with a 486/33 and a one button mouse: animation work is extremely constrained over there. They really need to get that guy some help and extra caffeine.
But separate from the animation work constraints, if MA, say, had its animation times cut in half, according to the dev attack balancing equations, that would not be a buff at all.
Not all players understand this. If you ask for Shadow Maul to have more damage, you are asking for it to have its recharge time and endurance costs increased. There are no exceptions to that rule short of an Act of God. If you ask for SM's animation time to be decreased, you might be asking for something that can't happen until 2008 when the animator has time, but ironically you aren't actually asking for an actual buff to the set - in terms of the equations the devs use to judge this. Recharge speed and endurance costs could stay exactly the same - in fact, according to the rules the devs follow, they *must* stay the same.
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I see what you mean. I totally ignored that issue.
But this still does not make sense when it is applied to these so called melee cones. Since there is an AoE limit there should be no reason for them not to increase the cone width. 5 targets is 5 targets whether we use the stacking exploit or not. I just want the cones wider so I wont have to herd all my missions just to get good usage out of my aoes. If they wont increase the cone width then they need to increase the max amount of targets. My guess is their logic is if we make this cone so tiny the will never hit more than 2 mobs so a 5 mob limit wont matter because they will never be able to reach it without stacking.
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Ok, new system. Widen the cones. Since they are designed to hit 1.5 targets, fine. We'll use that as the max intended damage.
1 target is hit (100% normal damage)
2 targets are hit (75% normal damage)
3 targets are hit (50% normal damage)
4 targets are hit (37.5% normal damage)
5 targets are hit (30% normal damage)
You wouldn't count misses of course, so if you had 5 targets in the wider cone, but missed on 3, you'd use the 2 targets scale (75% damage.)
except none of the powers people are talking about are actually true cones and they are not designed around that number at all.
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But this still does not make sense when it is applied to these so called melee cones. Since there is an AoE limit there should be no reason for them not to increase the cone width. 5 targets is 5 targets whether we use the stacking exploit or not. I just want the cones wider so I wont have to herd all my missions just to get good usage out of my aoes. If they wont increase the cone width then they need to increase the max amount of targets. My guess is their logic is if we make this cone so tiny the will never hit more than 2 mobs so a 5 mob limit wont matter because they will never be able to reach it without stacking.
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here, i'll quote myself.
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treat the small cones as a bonus you don't have to pay for, not an essential use of the power.
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these are single target powers with a fee chance to hit something else. they are not designed with that as a constant requirement for their use. you do not want them to rebalance these powers as actual cones. drop it.
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I know you are right in what you say, S_F, yet I think that using things as Damage/Ranges, which are easy enough to get, were a very nice way to have *some* disparity between different characters. It's still not overpowering, since the Cones are all limited to a maximum number already. Either we stack mobs to get the odds in our favour, or we use something as extraordinary as a Hamidon Origin to do the same thing -- Devs have always said they wanted to discourage herding, so it seems Dam/Ranges were a step in the right direction there 
Perhaps it does not fit into the Developer vision of how every power is supposed to be perfectly balanced in comparison to other powers, but it sure did create some diversity, albeit on a very minor scale.
Then they're asking for people to herd and exploit? I understand a free bonus that hits 2, maybe 3 people for full damage, but 5? And every single time as long as you line them up using the geometry? Pardon me, but that's dumb. If they put a limit of 5 on the number that a power can hit, they ought to fully intend for that power to regularly hit 5.
So is this message I'm suppose to get is 'It's ok to cheat the game system, as long as you're really good at it and don't do it in huge numbers?' *sigh* I'm probably over-reacting, and I really don't want these powers nerfed. I'd just like to see some real balance in the game, not mathematical 'our formula doesn't take that into account' balance.
fine, then let them balance these attacks for the assumption that you should be using them like a true aoe. The end costs will more than double and so will the recharge times.
There's your balance, happy now?
or, and i realize this is a stretch, people can shut the hell up about it and treat it like the bonus it is instead of asking for something that you really will regret getting.
the devs have stated repeatedly that the type of skill they like to reward is that of actually playing and smart use of powers, not of building the character. Statesman said he doesn't like the effects and boring nature of powerleveling, but not necessarily the way we do it.
putting a system like this in place does encourage us to pack people into the cone. why? because it places us at greater risk to leave those mobs alive as we position them. And if you're willing to take the risk, you get rewarded with more damage that you don't have to pay for in terms of end and recharge, but skill and risk.
there's nothing wrong with it other than people want it to be easier to use the cone and get the reward.
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Personally, I have an easier time hitting multiple targets with Headsplitter than I do with Shadow Maul -- part due to the fact I play Broadsword for almost two years now, but also part due to Headsplitter's cone being a slight "line" as opposed to Shadow Mauls width. If targets are standing behind eachother, it's extremely simple to hit the one in the back while hitting the one in the front too (Headsplitter allows a 'larger' distance between both targets than SM does).
Still, I think Headsplitter's cone is just the cherry on top of an already awesome power. Even without any form of cone, Headsplitter would be a most brutal attack. I would not consider Shadow Maul without its cone as such. Shadow Maul's animation can feel so tediously long, that *not* hitting more than one target is almost not worth it.