should team buffs have diminishing returns?
By
ageone,
Posted on: 2007-04-10 09:49 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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On the other hand.. buffers and debuffers get turned away from teams because they already have enough of that kind of buff.
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Considering that this already happens to some degree, I don't see this as too much of a problem considering the potential benefits.
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On the other hand.. buffers and debuffers get turned away from teams because they already have enough of that kind of buff.
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Considering that this already happens to some degree, I don't see this as too much of a problem considering the potential benefits.
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So.. the reason to make the problem WORSE.. is because it is already happening?
Does not compute.
Edit: Oh god my head hurts.. I might as well pound it against the wall to make it hurt more!
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Thank you Hertz! Your simple and colorful example made things very clear. I love Arcanaville, but my eyes tend to blur when reading her posts ... no offense, Arcanaville. If it's any consolation, the eye blurring is quickly followed up with, "I love Arcanaville because her numbers are always right, so I trust whatever premise she concludes with ..." 
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I have to agree. Hertz's example was top-notch.
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Indeed it was. Bravo.
Sadly it just makes me even MORE conflicted. The idea sounds wonderful.. but I keep wondering if it is worth taking the blow to easy teaming. Right now.. options options options. Slap any team together and you do well(if nobody on the team is brain dead).
I'm afraid it would cause a domino effect. "Sorry.. we have enough of your kind of buff. If you join the mission becomes harder and the system makes it so you can't pull your own weight". It becomes harder to form a team. You have to look for more specific people when you could have just grabbed a handful of people and gone on your way. People get left out. These combined make more people solo out of frustration. Now that more people solo the teaming pool is even smaller. Teaming is even harder. More people solo out of frustration.
I guess it depends on how much additional help a buff of the same type helps. I'm willing to bet a lot that the developer idea of reasonable isn't nearly the same as that of the average Co* player. The kind that knows NOTHING of the system other than that second defender isn't adding a whole lot to the team. It isn't that this is a bad idea. It is that.. well.. people will muck up paradise. Edit: In a perfect world everybody automatically finds the one team that needs them and matching up is easy. Sadly this isn't a perfect world.
Who was it that first said "this is why we can't have nice things"?
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Not at all. I'm out to see just what Castle said would happen. Weave wouldn't have to be 5% defense, SR could finally get a fair amount of mitigation and defenders could use their buffs on themselves.
But hey, easier to question my motives than put forth an argument.
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On the other hand.. buffers and debuffers get turned away from teams because they already have enough of that kind of buff. Healing suddenly becomes the sane option if you want to be a team buffer(good luck trying to give diminishing returns for healing!). More people are encouraged to solo than ever before because their powers don't help the team if some OTHER buffer is their first. Then other people solo because they can't find a team because the defenders/controllers feel they are forced to solo. Then we get even MORE people complaining that they can't ever find a team and more posts on the boards saying the game is dead and we need to consolidate all the servers so we can find teams.
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That's the interesting thing. This shouldn't happen at all. See in this mythical future state, people will pick teammates because all buffs will help. Trick Arrow won't be a joke, because its stats on its debuffs won't be pitifully low. Right now, having more than one FF defender is a waste for the most part. More than two is an actual waste. Under this system, sure the first FF defender isn't as useful as they are now, but each new one you add provides buffs that are useful to the group. Now, of course, it may be that the group decides they would want to have a Sonic and a FF, which will be better than two FFs. But that's GOOD. That's diversity, real diversity.
Stacking buffs will ALWAYS be helpful, but having a diversity of buffing options is better. Empaths won't be any more or less in demand than they are now. But demand should be spread more evenly.
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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Thank you Hertz! Your simple and colorful example made things very clear. I love Arcanaville, but my eyes tend to blur when reading her posts ... no offense, Arcanaville. If it's any consolation, the eye blurring is quickly followed up with, "I love Arcanaville because her numbers are always right, so I trust whatever premise she concludes with ..."
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I have to agree. Hertz's example was top-notch.
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Indeed it was. Bravo.
Sadly it just makes me even MORE conflicted. The idea sounds wonderful.. but I keep wondering if it is worth taking the blow to easy teaming. Right now.. options options options. Slap any team together and you do well(if nobody on the team is brain dead).
I'm afraid it would cause a domino effect. "Sorry.. we have enough of your kind of buff. If you join the mission becomes harder and the system makes it so you can't pull your own weight". It becomes harder to form a team. You have to look for more specific people when you could have just grabbed a handful of people and gone on your way. People get left out. These combined make more people solo out of frustration. Now that more people solo the teaming pool is even smaller. Teaming is even harder. More people solo out of frustration.
I guess it depends on how much additional help a buff of the same type helps. I'm willing to bet a lot that the developer idea of reasonable isn't nearly the same as that of the average Co* player. The kind that knows NOTHING of the system other than that second defender isn't adding a whole lot to the team. It isn't that this is a bad idea. It is that.. well.. people will muck up paradise. Edit: In a perfect world everybody automatically finds the one team that needs them and matching up is easy. Sadly this isn't a perfect world.
Who was it that first said "this is why we can't have nice things"?
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But see, that's the beauty, the next defender if they're the same kind of defender is adding exactly the same amount of mitigation as the last defender. If they are another type of defender, then they're adding some different kind of value which diversity will help.
I can't really see this as a problem because it is already worse than that. Only a few kinds of defenders stack well. Many get you to the cap with one or two. With multiplicative stacking, EVERYBODY you add to the team is helpful. Getting a diverse group is MORE helpful, but then, that's what we should want.
A super team should be a blend of ATs including at least one member each of the pentad. A super team shouldn't be 8 defenders or controllers.
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.
Well alright.
To bad this is a pointless discussion. It will never happen.
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Well alright.
To bad this is a pointless discussion. It will never happen.
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Not exactly pointless. While this is a lot of work and most likely won't happen, the same thing could be said about loot and wings and a whole lot of other things that just managed to happen.
The devs would have a LOT easier time balancing if they did a major revamp of the powers system.
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.
Except they already did past balancing instead of this.. or they wouldn't have done it!
Wowzers! This thread went from 0-to-awful right from the start.
How about implementing a 'Cosmic Balance-like' modifier for all ATs and be done with it. 
Repeat Offenders
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Except they already did past balancing instead of this.. or they wouldn't have done it!
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Or their saving this idea for the next project. (CoH2?)
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team buffs have a mechanics problem. Teams vary in size from 1-8 so a buff that applies to everyone on the team is multiplied in effectiveness from 1x to 8x. Either a buff is useless for small teams or godmode for large teams - or both.
What if team buffs had diminishing returns? Say 150% effectiveness for teams of 1-2, 125% for 3-4, 100% for 5-6, and 75% for 7-8 (numbers given are just an idea, the real numbers would need to be better balanced and more complex like (Y-1) X (12.5% + R/2.3).
That way buffs would be more useful on smaller teams and less powerful on bigger teams than they are now. A team buff should still give a bigger total boost on a large team but not 4x on an 8 person team what it does on a 2 person team.
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They should, they really really should.
Right. Come up with yet-another reason to discourage full-sized teams in this game. Co* has too many of those oversized PuGs now as it is.
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team buffs have a mechanics problem. Teams vary in size from 1-8 so a buff that applies to everyone on the team is multiplied in effectiveness from 1x to 8x. Either a buff is useless for small teams or godmode for large teams - or both.
What if team buffs had diminishing returns? Say 150% effectiveness for teams of 1-2, 125% for 3-4, 100% for 5-6, and 75% for 7-8 (numbers given are just an idea, the real numbers would need to be better balanced and more complex like (Y-1) X (12.5% + R/2.3).
That way buffs would be more useful on smaller teams and less powerful on bigger teams than they are now. A team buff should still give a bigger total boost on a large team but not 4x on an 8 person team what it does on a 2 person team.
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Yes, they should. In fact, adding diminishing returns to buffs and debuffs of all sorts would allow us to alter many, many problematic powers. In all likelyhood, though, it will not happen. The change would simply be too fundmental and require a great deal of work on our part.
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Which "problematic" powers would that be?
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Thank you Hertz! Your simple and colorful example made things very clear. I love Arcanaville, but my eyes tend to blur when reading her posts ... no offense, Arcanaville. If it's any consolation, the eye blurring is quickly followed up with, "I love Arcanaville because her numbers are always right, so I trust whatever premise she concludes with ..."
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I have to agree. Hertz's example was top-notch.
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Indeed it was. Bravo.
Sadly it just makes me even MORE conflicted. The idea sounds wonderful.. but I keep wondering if it is worth taking the blow to easy teaming. Right now.. options options options. Slap any team together and you do well(if nobody on the team is brain dead).
I'm afraid it would cause a domino effect. "Sorry.. we have enough of your kind of buff. If you join the mission becomes harder and the system makes it so you can't pull your own weight". It becomes harder to form a team. You have to look for more specific people when you could have just grabbed a handful of people and gone on your way. People get left out. These combined make more people solo out of frustration. Now that more people solo the teaming pool is even smaller. Teaming is even harder. More people solo out of frustration.
I guess it depends on how much additional help a buff of the same type helps. I'm willing to bet a lot that the developer idea of reasonable isn't nearly the same as that of the average Co* player. The kind that knows NOTHING of the system other than that second defender isn't adding a whole lot to the team. It isn't that this is a bad idea. It is that.. well.. people will muck up paradise. Edit: In a perfect world everybody automatically finds the one team that needs them and matching up is easy. Sadly this isn't a perfect world.
Who was it that first said "this is why we can't have nice things"?
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But see, that's the beauty, the next defender if they're the same kind of defender is adding exactly the same amount of mitigation as the last defender. If they are another type of defender, then they're adding some different kind of value which diversity will help.
I can't really see this as a problem because it is already worse than that. Only a few kinds of defenders stack well. Many get you to the cap with one or two. With multiplicative stacking, EVERYBODY you add to the team is helpful. Getting a diverse group is MORE helpful, but then, that's what we should want.
A super team should be a blend of ATs including at least one member each of the pentad. A super team shouldn't be 8 defenders or controllers.
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Where is the line drawn though? How weak do you want to make the buff/debuffs? I think it is a horrible idea, large groups will realize adding single defender does very little, instead of adding 3 defenders to get the same affect as pre-patch, they'll say the hell with the headache, add more blasters, scrappers or an empathy def or controller.
You are trying to describe this perfect world where a group would keep adding defenders to reach the old status quo. In reality the groups would realize it is much easier to just add an empathy def/controller, and take those other team slots and add more dps.
As for what the "perfect" group should be, a perfect group is a bunch of players I enjoy playing with. I don't want Everquest or WoW, where I must have this or that AT to get a mission team off the ground.
After reading this entire thread, I can't help but think many of you want a traditional MMO system where the fundamental parts of a team must be present or the team can't even leave the train.
MMO's are funny, people complain about wanting diversity, choices, tons of classes, powers, skills and spells. When it comes down to it, they are very uncomfortable when its given to them, and end up yearning for a tank healer system.
The last part wasn't directed specifically at who I quoted, just a general observation.
adding a single defender will do more.
adding 8 defenders will do less.
so instead of wanting 8 defenders on a team they may want a scrapper, blaster, etc.
Right now a team of 8 controllers/defenders is the best. So right now we have the situation you described, but for all of the other AT's except controller/defender. Who wants a 3rd tanker? Or a 3rd scrapper?
My problem with the way that Arcana's argument works is that it's like Zeno's dichotomy paradox, except with buffs. While it sounds great that each buffer decreases incoming damage by the same amount in relative terms, the reality is that after a certain point the absolute contribution by the next defender added just isn't worth the time.
Take the hypothetical 50% defense buffers. The first buffer will drop incoming damage by half, and so will the second, and so will the third, and by the third you're already at 87.5% damage mitigation, which is pretty super. Bringing in a fourth will raise that another 6%; a fifth will raise that another 3%, and so forth.
In reality, though, while each of those latter additions is still stopping 50% of the damage that would have penetrated in their absence, the actual threat is relatively fixed. When you add a new teammate, the opposition simply doesn't ramp massively, so there isn't a huge operational difference between stopping ~93% incoming damage and stopping ~96% incoming damage, even though one lets through twice as much damage at the other. For nearly any circumstance I can imagine in the game we all play, no one is going to care about taking 3% less damage when looking for teammates. Even the 6% is pretty questionable.
As a consequence, it's still not going to be in your favor regardless to try and keep pushing in more defensive buffers after some point. You'd hit an effective ceiling if not an actual cap and look to build teams where you're getting the least combinatorial inhibition, and that'll be made worse by the fact that the buff recipient's own powers count against the diminishing returns.
I kinda feel the same way about the debuff resistance loosening the devs did on the AVs. Sure, they tripled how well resisted debuffs do against AVs... but tripling is a relative term, and we're still only getting 15% of nominal debuff value against an AV. It's better, but it's sure not woohoohoo better. The relative improvement makes for nice marketing but the absolute value is still a bit of a downer.
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adding a single defender will do more.
adding 8 defenders will do less.
so instead of wanting 8 defenders on a team they may want a scrapper, blaster, etc.
Right now a team of 8 controllers/defenders is the best. So right now we have the situation you described, but for all of the other AT's except controller/defender. Who wants a 3rd tanker? Or a 3rd scrapper?
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Maybe I read the OP incorrectly. But, he isn't describing making defender buffs not stack with other defender buffs. He wants a defenders buff to do less and less, the larger the group gets. I don't like that idea, there we be a point where people decide the buffs are too weak, and its better just to grab some healz. We'd then have what many here having been trying to turn this game into since they left Everquest years ago. A system where to only way to play is tank or tanks get aggro, and toss big heals at them.
It would be couterproductive, a 2 man team really doesn't need huge buffs and heals to survive the mission load out. The op's example would make the defenders buffs in a 2 man team, be at its most powerfull. Now when a full team is joined, where you are facing dozens of minions, 3 bosses a battle, the defenders powers would be at their weakest.
Now if he had suggested that the first Accelerate Metabolism(for example) act as it now now, but each successive AM stacked would do less and less, I could be on board for that.
Lastly, why does it bother people that a pre-made group of all defenders is doing stuff? This is a very forgiving game, almost any mix of AT's can work out a strat, some very unconventional, to get things done without other AT's. This is a plus for CoH and what makes it a good game, not a flaw.
I like that fact that creating a fun mission group is all about my friends list and who is fun to spend a few hours playing with. I don't want bulding a group to break down to "fek can't find a tank, I'm logging". I believe that is what you want, a game system changed to include gimmicks or tricks that REQUIRE a representative of each AT be present to get anything meaningfull done. I don't want that game. Every other MMO already does that. Requiring tank plus healer, then everyone else is mostly replaceable or interchangeable. CoH done well in breaking the mold and there being many ways to "tank" a spawn. Traditional tank, heal, scrapper plus buffs as tank, several debuff and buffs so even a squishy can tank with a little luck.
What you see as something that needs fixed, is what I see as a strength of CoH.
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Take the hypothetical 50% defense buffers. The first buffer will drop incoming damage by half, and so will the second, and so will the third, and by the third you're already at 87.5% damage mitigation, which is pretty super. Bringing in a fourth will raise that another 6%; a fifth will raise that another 3%, and so forth.
In reality, though, while each of those latter additions is still stopping 50% of the damage that would have penetrated in their absence, the actual threat is relatively fixed. When you add a new teammate, the opposition simply doesn't ramp massively, so there isn't a huge operational difference between stopping ~93% incoming damage and stopping ~96% incoming damage, even though one lets through twice as much damage at the other. For nearly any circumstance I can imagine in the game we all play, no one is going to care about taking 3% less damage when looking for teammates. Even the 6% is pretty questionable.
As a consequence, it's still not going to be in your favor regardless to try and keep pushing in more defensive buffers after some point. You'd hit an effective ceiling if not an actual cap and look to build teams where you're getting the least combinatorial inhibition, and that'll be made worse by the fact that the buff recipient's own powers count against the diminishing returns.
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But that's the point: to forestall when that happens, not to eliminate it. You're saying that at some point, it is of limited benefit to add more defense buffers. That's true, but right now, that situation is also true, and the number is lower. Its bad all around. If you have a +DEF buffer, you get more additional benefit from an additional +DEF buffer over a +RES buffer to a point and then the additional +DEF buffs have *no* additional benefit, because you've hit the tohit floor. That's doubly wrong. It should be incrementally more even, until you reach a point where *no* additional protection of any kind is really necessary, but up to that point any form of additional protection is comparable in all but the fine details.
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You both have good ideas and presentation, but I think I'm going to have to side with Arcanaville on this one. IF the current situation is a problem (I would cast it as a 'sleeper' problem. It could explode into a full blown issue at any moment, but right now, too few regular players exploit it for it to be an issue) then having each buff have the same effect would be the best solution.
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You both have good ideas and presentation, but I think I'm going to have to side with Arcanaville on this one. IF the current situation is a problem (I would cast it as a 'sleeper' problem. It could explode into a full blown issue at any moment, but right now, too few regular players exploit it for it to be an issue) then having each buff have the same effect would be the best solution.
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read how people do STF and you will see the problem. Get 8 /rad controllers and the tf takes 45 minutes. Get a team with no controllers and defenders and you probably can't do the tf at all.
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You both have good ideas and presentation, but I think I'm going to have to side with Arcanaville on this one. IF the current situation is a problem (I would cast it as a 'sleeper' problem. It could explode into a full blown issue at any moment, but right now, too few regular players exploit it for it to be an issue) then having each buff have the same effect would be the best solution.
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read how people do STF and you will see the problem. Get 8 /rad controllers and the tf takes 45 minutes. Get a team with no controllers and defenders and you probably can't do the tf at all.
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With virtually no buffs, debuffs, or control, I don't think a team with zero controllers and defenders really has a right to complain the high-end game content wasn't specifically designed for them.
I think the first time I did it on live, I was the only rad controller. I think I might have been the only rad. We had a kinetics or two, though. And only seven people at the end. And no temp powers.
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You both have good ideas and presentation, but I think I'm going to have to side with Arcanaville on this one. IF the current situation is a problem (I would cast it as a 'sleeper' problem. It could explode into a full blown issue at any moment, but right now, too few regular players exploit it for it to be an issue) then having each buff have the same effect would be the best solution.
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read how people do STF and you will see the problem. Get 8 /rad controllers and the tf takes 45 minutes. Get a team with no controllers and defenders and you probably can't do the tf at all.
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You may be right, but first you have to assemble a team that will even TRY it with no Controllers or Defenders.
Is it possible for such a team to win the STF? Probably, especially with heavy use of Inspirations, Nukes and Shivans, and with a cavalier attitude about debt and plenty of playtime.
I agree that it's a problem. Is it a big enough problem that the Devs need to anger a lot of Defenders/Controllers (and the other players who count on them to make TFs easy/fast)?
...maybe.
Let's get Defense fixed first 
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It is also fixing a problem that outside of maybe the STF and a few forum built superteams, isn't even on the radar of your average player.
The usual comment I hear when on a PuG that starts to get heavy on defenders/controllers? "We need some damage, invite a blaster or scrapper please!" Or on a team with 4 defenders and a tank and before we could even get started, "Wow, no damage on this team." Average player still thinks defender=healer with pitiful damage they shouldn't even be wasting their endurance on.
I think I'd be on the side that says it isn't worth the resources. I'd also be afraid if anything was done they'd go with something stupid and easy like the controller PToD binary fix rather than a scaling one.
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It is also fixing a problem that outside of maybe the STF and a few forum built superteams, isn't even on the radar of your average player.
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Just because its not "on the radar" of the average player, doesn't mean it doesn't affect them. The average player can't describe what ED even does, which means as much as I personally think it was a horrible implementation of a reasonable idea, its probably true that most of the people who dislike it dislike it because they think they should, not because they have any idea what they are disliking.
Conversely, there are a lot of things that players *would* take issue with, if only they understood what was actually going on. The average super reflexes scrapper did not know that force field bubbles were actually not stacking with their defenses at one time: I know, I ran with lots of SR scrappers that continued to run their toggles while bubbled back in the day, when it made virtually no sense or difference to do so. That problem wasn't "on the radar" of practically *any* player - very few of us knew the problem even existed - but that fact made it no less of an important problem.
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Not at all. I'm out to see just what Castle said would happen. Weave wouldn't have to be 5% defense, SR could finally get a fair amount of mitigation and defenders could use their buffs on themselves.
But hey, easier to question my motives than put forth an argument.
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Hm.. On the one hand.. blasters with actual defense so they don't go squish solo.. and my dream of a FF defender that actually uses their amazing force field power to protect themselves AND fight at the same time. SR doesn't suck because it MIGHT team with a force field defender once in every few years.
On the other hand.. buffers and debuffers get turned away from teams because they already have enough of that kind of buff. Healing suddenly becomes the sane option if you want to be a team buffer(good luck trying to give diminishing returns for healing!). More people are encouraged to solo than ever before because their powers don't help the team if some OTHER buffer is their first. Then other people solo because they can't find a team because the defenders/controllers feel they are forced to solo. Then we get even MORE people complaining that they can't ever find a team and more posts on the boards saying the game is dead and we need to consolidate all the servers so we can find teams.
Considering my luck finding people to play with.. you would think my choice is obvious, but I am torn on this.