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Most balance posts in the PvP forum tend to point to the favored sets and say either: 1) Make all sets like them; or 2) Nerf them so they are like everyone else.
The problem with that is that many of these sets were specifically created with the advantages they have because they aren't good at other things. So to fix this would require that we increase the homogeniety in the play experience. This is something that the developers really don't want to do.
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What is Energy Melee not good at? - ridiculously high damage, rarely resisted dmg type, insane amounts of stuns which are less resisted than many other side effects.
What is ice blast not good at? - high dmg crazy fast attacks, with slows that are rarely resisted and fatal when stacked
What is spines not good at? - crazy range, slows that are rarely resisted and fatal when stacked
The problem with these sets is they have powers for which there is no check or balance. The simple solution outside of nerfing said powers is to provide players a way to check the effects that make the powers overly powerful. Make stun resist and slow resist powers available to players via new pool powers. Energy melee simply needs a nerfing, I think anyone who is being honest and neutral that knows anything about game balance would admit this (and I have 3 toons with energy melee and love it for obvious reasons...).
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Those sets are designed to function in a game with both PvE and PvP elements. Energy Melee has strong single target damage but weak AoE. Spines has strong AoE and range, but costs a lot of endurance to power continuously.
Ice, well, I'll give you Ice, because really Ice isn't weak at anything. High single target damage, decent AoE, good control, strong mez. Its only missing element for a blaster set is that it has no long range snipe, which given how the devs designed snipes and how they engineered the game environment, is not a significant loss given all of its other advantages.
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Energy Melee - pro's - insanely high unresisted damage and most attacks stun (and they stack). con - only one aoe (boo-hoo) Result = everyone takes it in PVE and PVP(shocking).
Spines - pros - insane amounts of aoe and range (in a melee set) with stacked slows - all of which is hugely beneficial in both pvp and pve. con - it uses slightly more endurance than other sets (but your killing more quicker which probably negates the end difference in pve). Again, considered by most to be the best pvp/pve scrapper set by far.
And again, you dont have to nerf to fix the problem - just give people a way to counter the strengths of these sets like they already have ways to counter the other 99% of the powers in the game. Instead of giving yet another power that grants -fly or kb protection, maybe create powers or side effects of powers that grant resistance to stun and slows.
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Freakshow...
Tanks...
Arms...
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lol
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But that doesn't mean it couldn't evolve into something much more balanced. The Invention System was a golden opportunity to do so, but as it stands now, while it seems to offer certain interesting improvements in areas that might improve balance, overall it tends to give those who have, more. My impression of the Inventions currently available in the Invention System says, for example, that Ice/Energy blasters aren't going to be hurting when it comes to leveraging IOs, and neither are Regen scrappers. And even though the devs all but admit publicly that tohit buffs are problematic for defense sets in PvP, the IO system is *loaded* with tohit buffs all over the place. Today, most PvPers have tohit buffs. In I9, if you don't at least have perma-rage's tohit buff permanently plastered on you, you just aren't trying hard enough. That's not good for defense sets.
It *could* get better. In a way, the Invention System is a theoretical way to introduce very radical changes to the game, without radically changing the game. Look at how it tosses certain cherished dogmas aside: blasters are dogmatically barred from getting mez protection or resistance in general, but they can now invent it in some cases. Change is possible, if difficult and not a little circuitous.
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I think the invention system is a good idea. IMO, fair and balanced does not mean equal players but an equal playing field. Yes inventions will make the best most involved players even better than the casual avg player and create greater gaps between the best and worst player, but it will allow for opportunities to eliminate imbalances that imo are unfair and 'game-breaking'. Some of the reasons people pick ice blasters and spines scrappers for pvp with insane regularity is due to the inability of opponents to get independent resistance to slows. Inventions will allow people to invest in slow protection (if they choose to), which will remove that unresisted benefit that helps makes such power sets so universally used. The bottom line is, if some powers work universally better than other powers and have no counter point, then the game balance is broken. Inventions allow for a counter point if the designers can diagnose which powers need a counter point and provide such inventions to address this need, ie stun and slow resistance. Of course it could work in the opposite way if the designers create inventions that allow you to buff these already 'uber' powers. In other words, inventions are an excellent 'tool' that will allow the designers to fine tune the game, but as with any tool, it can be used well and it can be used poorly. Time will tell how this games designers will use it.
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Ice, well, I'll give you Ice, because really Ice isn't weak at anything. High single target damage, decent AoE, good control, strong mez. Its only missing element for a blaster set is that it has no long range snipe, which given how the devs designed snipes and how they engineered the game environment, is not a significant loss given all of its other advantages.
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I don't see the 'decent AoE'. Ice Storm is more of a control. Frost Breath is slow and narrow. Blizzard is very good.
I think Ice's downsides is that as you said it lacks a snipe, which I personally do not believe is a big deal. It lacks a targetable AoE. It lacks a decent width cone. In exchance it's the best single target killer in the AT.
It's why I picked it when it was 'gimp'. 
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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Ice, well, I'll give you Ice, because really Ice isn't weak at anything. High single target damage, decent AoE, good control, strong mez. Its only missing element for a blaster set is that it has no long range snipe, which given how the devs designed snipes and how they engineered the game environment, is not a significant loss given all of its other advantages.
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I don't see the 'decent AoE'. Ice Storm is more of a control. Frost Breath is slow and narrow. Blizzard is very good.
I think Ice's downsides is that as you said it lacks a snipe, which I personally do not believe is a big deal. It lacks a targetable AoE. It lacks a decent width cone. In exchance it's the best single target killer in the AT.
It's why I picked it when it was 'gimp'.
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Frost breath does 50% more damage than either torrent or explosive blast, and has an accuracy bonus. In actual practice, the activation time of frost breath is not as much of a problem as it appears, because the normal ice ranged attacks activate so fast that there are always gaps in Ice chains.
Ice storm does a fair amount of damage if you can keep the targets under the effect. And unlike some other sets, Ice actually has slows to try to keep targets under its rains.
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this game has a lot more variety in builds than other games do, so while we could afford to make the less used sets more viable, it's not THAT bad how it is now.
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Freakshow...
Tanks...
Arms...
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Why are you implying our devs are incompetant?
o.O
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this game has a lot more variety in builds than other games do, so while we could afford to make the less used sets more viable, it's not THAT bad how it is now.
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1 set d0m1nates in every class/catagory except Defender Primaries.
You'd have to be a gimp to take anything except that one uber-set.
Which is the point isn't it?
Maybe you should all go play Halo...
Halo is balanced!
Why don't you go play Halo and stay out of the Co* PvP forums?
That would make me cry:*(
I do lots of PvP in CoH, but when I want a balanced skill based game I play Halo.
i play pong for balanced PVP action.
...and ir0x0r is the first to answer the question, "what was the first game mentioned in Rules of Play.
Arcanaville, thanks for answering my questions. I was kind'a hoping the Devs would use the invention system to redress the imbalances. Your analysis shows it actually makes the tough sets relatively tougher? And throws in more to-hit buffs to boot?
...oy! Well, "loot" gives me a headache anyway.
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1. Make sure every power set has a specific defensive weakness, such that possession of the offensive ability to exploit that weakness offers a significant, material advantage to the possessor, verses that power set.
2. Make sure every power set has a specific defensive strength, such that anything that offensively focuses on that strength will be at a material disadvantage verses that set.
3. Make sure its non-trivial to buy your way out of your weakness.
4. Make sure that for every power set, one of two things is true:
4a. The set contains the offensive means to exploit its own weakness
or
4b. The set offensively focuses on its own strength
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But that does increase homogeniety. If everyone adheres to the formula then everyone is more similar.
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What formula are you talking about? The quote above describes a design methodology for power sets, not builds. Saying that enforces homogeneity is like saying that the current system enforces homogeneity because everyone is currently forced to be one of twelve archetypes.
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No, it's not. And if your design methodology does what it suggests then homogeniety will be increased because similarity will be increased. That's what the word means.
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Theoretically speaking, I could use those design principles and design more different archetypes than CoH currently has powersets. They do not in any way specifically require any additional homogeneity. In fact, I could take the *existing* powers, and reshuffle them in a way that expresses those design priniciples also, which again implies that they do not make any sort of diversity statement at all. They make no specific restrictions on what can exist, only what specific combinations of things can exist, and the same restriction currently exists for CoH now.
The only options it eliminates are specifically unbalanced options. But it creates at least as many as it eliminates, which makes it a non-issue for diversity.
You're going to need to be very specific, because I do not see what you are suggesting is self-evident.
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I do lots of PvP in CoH, but when I want a balanced skill based game I play Halo.
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Balanced, right. So someone with a Needler has a chance against a guy of equal skill with a Plasma Pistol and an SMG?
It's "balanced" in the same way that CoX is - the same options are available to all players, and the players gravitate towards what works and shun what doesn't. Or they lose.
It's "skill-based" in the sense that, ignoring other circumstances, the better player will win. Which - hey, that sounds like CoX PvP again!
goldeneye pistols liscense to kill in the complex where it's at.
Pop a cap from my DD44 in yo [censored].
dude I roll with the magnum anyway. that little delay before the shot actually goes off is killer.
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Balanced, right. So someone with a Needler has a chance against a guy of equal skill with a Plasma Pistol and an SMG?
It's "balanced" in the same way that CoX is - the same options are available to all players, and the players gravitate towards what works and shun what doesn't. Or they lose.
It's "skill-based" in the sense that, ignoring other circumstances, the better player will win. Which - hey, that sounds like CoX PvP again!
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That would make sense if switching to a level 50 ice/em or something in the middle of a match was as simple as picking up a plasma pistol.. or if people didn't start with the same weapon and couldn't switch weapons.
In MLG rules everyone starts out with a battle rifle anyways, you only pick up a needler to blind them with pink spikes and humiliate them.
It's easy to say "ignoring other circumstances," but in MMO pvp that rarely happens.
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Those sets are designed to function in a game with both PvE and PvP elements. Energy Melee has strong single target damage but weak AoE. Spines has strong AoE and range, but costs a lot of endurance to power continuously.
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That's true, but IMO there's a problem in just looking at a Better for PvP/Worse for PvE balance, which is usually why EM is given a pass. What's important is [b]how much[b] better, and how much worse.
For EM, it's not that bad for PvE. Nobody ever said an /EM tank was gimped, just lacking in AoE when herding was the thing. But it's so superior in PvP that bringing any other set for a Tank is basically like not bringing a Secondary.
So is that balance? OK PvE, completely overpowering PvP? I'd suggest that's probably not appropriate. In the long run, more and more Tanks will be /EM Tanks, b/c they'll be adequate (at least) in PvE, but will dominate other Tanks in PvP.
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But it's so superior in PvP that bringing any other set for a Tank is basically like not bringing a Secondary.
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Actually, superstrength is a legitimate rival for Energy Melee. Fire can be, if its specifically paired with Fiery Aura.
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But it's so superior in PvP that bringing any other set for a Tank is basically like not bringing a Secondary.
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Actually, superstrength is a legitimate rival for Energy Melee. Fire can be, if its specifically paired with Fiery Aura.
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No.
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Most balance posts in the PvP forum tend to point to the favored sets and say either: 1) Make all sets like them; or 2) Nerf them so they are like everyone else.
The problem with that is that many of these sets were specifically created with the advantages they have because they aren't good at other things. So to fix this would require that we increase the homogeniety in the play experience. This is something that the developers really don't want to do.
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What is Energy Melee not good at? - ridiculously high damage, rarely resisted dmg type, insane amounts of stuns which are less resisted than many other side effects.
What is ice blast not good at? - high dmg crazy fast attacks, with slows that are rarely resisted and fatal when stacked
What is spines not good at? - crazy range, slows that are rarely resisted and fatal when stacked
The problem with these sets is they have powers for which there is no check or balance. The simple solution outside of nerfing said powers is to provide players a way to check the effects that make the powers overly powerful. Make stun resist and slow resist powers available to players via new pool powers. Energy melee simply needs a nerfing, I think anyone who is being honest and neutral that knows anything about game balance would admit this (and I have 3 toons with energy melee and love it for obvious reasons...).
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Those sets are designed to function in a game with both PvE and PvP elements. Energy Melee has strong single target damage but weak AoE. Spines has strong AoE and range, but costs a lot of endurance to power continuously.
Ice, well, I'll give you Ice, because really Ice isn't weak at anything. High single target damage, decent AoE, good control, strong mez. Its only missing element for a blaster set is that it has no long range snipe, which given how the devs designed snipes and how they engineered the game environment, is not a significant loss given all of its other advantages.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)