should team buffs have diminishing returns?

DarthMord · 04-11-2007 12:15 PM

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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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Lord help us, they'd do it if they could!

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Sure! Then Weave could give 15% Defense, and Combat Jumping could give 25% Defense (or whatever) and combined, they'd give 30% instead of 40%. When the local FF Defender buffed the character, instead of the normal 25% for the FF, it'd be 5% for 35% defense.*

Basically, additional buffs would always be helpful, but the base level abilities could be made better and more useful across the board.

* Disclaimer: All numbers used illustratively and do not indicate any relation to what said values or formulae would actually be if we were ever to implement a system such as this, which I doubt.

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Castle, just for the record... if it helps to get this implemented, I'll happily sign it and even send cookies to Statesman and Positron.

The reason why I support it... the game is very much City of Buff/Debuff rather than Heroes/Villains in general IMO.

Virtue: multiple characters.

CoH/V: Woot! Maybe Fun is to be had once again.

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If it reduces you, it's a nerf.
If it buffs the mobs, it's challenge.
They are not the same.

Biowraith · 04-11-2007 12:28 PM

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Sure! Then Weave could give 15% Defense, and Combat Jumping could give 25% Defense (or whatever) and combined, they'd give 30% instead of 40%. When the local FF Defender buffed the character, instead of the normal 25% for the FF, it'd be 5% for 35% defense.*

Basically, additional buffs would always be helpful, but the base level abilities could be made better and more useful across the board.

* Disclaimer: All numbers used illustratively and do not indicate any relation to what said values or formulae would actually be if we were ever to implement a system such as this, which I doubt.

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This would of course make for the fun situation of said local FF Defender being regularly turned down for the team because "we already have defense buffs, we need resists/heals/debuffs*"

*delete as appropriate, but you know it's gonna be heals

Obsidius · 04-11-2007 12:36 PM

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I don't need to argue with someone who wouldn't know civility if it walked up and bit them on the behind. Later. I'll argue with the rational instead.

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Pot, meet kettle

Sorry, I'll stop this threadjack now

HeckTender · 04-11-2007 12:39 PM

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Sure! Then Weave could give 15% Defense, and Combat Jumping could give 25% Defense (or whatever) and combined, they'd give 30% instead of 40%. When the local FF Defender buffed the character, instead of the normal 25% for the FF, it'd be 5% for 35% defense.*

Basically, additional buffs would always be helpful, but the base level abilities could be made better and more useful across the board.

* Disclaimer: All numbers used illustratively and do not indicate any relation to what said values or formulae would actually be if we were ever to implement a system such as this, which I doubt.

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And you could start typing the Hami damage, potentially. mark me down as /signed.

ValkyrieRising · 04-11-2007 12:41 PM

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Sure! Then Weave could give 15% Defense, and Combat Jumping could give 25% Defense (or whatever) and combined, they'd give 30% instead of 40%. When the local FF Defender buffed the character, instead of the normal 25% for the FF, it'd be 5% for 35% defense.*

Basically, additional buffs would always be helpful, but the base level abilities could be made better and more useful across the board.

* Disclaimer: All numbers used illustratively and do not indicate any relation to what said values or formulae would actually be if we were ever to implement a system such as this, which I doubt.

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This would of course make for the fun situation of said local FF Defender being regularly turned down for the team because "we already have defense buffs, we need resists/heals/debuffs*"

*delete as appropriate, but you know it's gonna be heals

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Pretty much. Call me /unsigned. I'd rather not watch CoX go the path of all other MMOs, tyvm.

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Repeat Offenders, TNT Profile, My little hero

Dysmal · 04-11-2007 12:44 PM

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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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Lord help us, they'd do it if they could!

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Sure! Then Weave could give 15% Defense, and Combat Jumping could give 25% Defense (or whatever) and combined, they'd give 30% instead of 40%. When the local FF Defender buffed the character, instead of the normal 25% for the FF, it'd be 5% for 35% defense.*

Basically, additional buffs would always be helpful, but the base level abilities could be made better and more useful across the board.

* Disclaimer: All numbers used illustratively and do not indicate any relation to what said values or formulae would actually be if we were ever to implement a system such as this, which I doubt.

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Err, wouldn't such a system essentially be going back to the Pre-ED "no one really needs buffs" situation that ED and the GDN were partially intended to fix?

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Sandolphan · 04-11-2007 12:57 PM

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I like being quoted by Rednames, but not like this...

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You do of course realize, if anything ever happens to buffs you will be blamed.

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I think he wants the new Pilcrow Badge.

-Sandolphan

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IdNemesis · 04-11-2007 01:04 PM

Oh, another well thought out bad idea on the CoH forums. Never would have guessed.

If you want City of Soloing Scrappers, this idea is a winner.

Lady Athyna · 04-11-2007 01:06 PM

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I like being quoted by Rednames, but not like this...

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You do of course realize, if anything ever happens to buffs you will be blamed.

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I think he wants the new Pilcrow Badge.

-Sandolphan

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There's a badge named after Pilcrow?!?

dugfromthearth · 04-11-2007 01:09 PM

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Err, wouldn't such a system essentially be going back to the Pre-ED "no one really needs buffs" situation that ED and the GDN were partially intended to fix?

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no.

The problem is that when the buffs stack mechanically the effects don't.

If I have 80% resistance and get +10% resistance I go from taking 20 dmg from that attack to 10 dmg. That +10% resistance means I can twice as many attacks before I go down. A tanker with 80% resistance on their own is twice as powerful with a +10% resistance buff from a defender.

But a blaster with 0% resistance on their own with +10% from a defender is only 10% more resistant. The buff is useless to them.

So with the current system a buff can be both overpowered and useless depending upon who gets buffed.

With diminishing returns you could make it so the buff reduced damage for anyone by 50%. So a blaster would take 50 dmg instead of 100, and the tanker would take 10 dmg instead of 20. Everyone wants the buff. It is useful for everyone but overpowered for no one.

Grinnz · 04-11-2007 01:09 PM

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Sure! Then Weave could give 15% Defense, and Combat Jumping could give 25% Defense (or whatever) and combined, they'd give 30% instead of 40%. When the local FF Defender buffed the character, instead of the normal 25% for the FF, it'd be 5% for 35% defense.*

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*drools* Useful defense powers? NOWAI!

Arcanaville · 04-11-2007 01:25 PM

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Sure! Then Weave could give 15% Defense, and Combat Jumping could give 25% Defense (or whatever) and combined, they'd give 30% instead of 40%.

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32.5%, actually. And you know this would be my first order of business as supreme overlord of the CoH codebase.

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if we were ever to implement a system such as this, which I doubt.

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That's only because I haven't properly tuned my hyperwave mind control antenna to the proper frequency yet. But poz can't hide in that underground bunker forever: sooner or later he's gotta come up for pizza.

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JeetKuneDo · 04-11-2007 01:25 PM

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team buffs have a mechanics problem.

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Nah...

No thanks. It's already tough enoug to find teams at times without making people think twice about inviting you because they already have "too many Controllers/Defenders".

Plus, it would be taking away yet another option in the game. Not every team is all one AT....but we can put one together if we want and it's a lot of fun. (I still want to try an all Blaster team sometime.)

This is just more forcing one way to play on everyone. Like how I used to try different kinds of slotting on Phantom Army before ED made only one slotting viable.

Arcanaville · 04-11-2007 01:29 PM

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I like being quoted by Rednames, but not like this...

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You do of course realize, if anything ever happens to buffs you will be blamed.

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You could always blame me instead: I've bugged Castle about this for so long, at this point I just cut and paste my suggestion into a PM, he cuts and pastes his PM that says its too much work, and that basically covers it for another couple of months.

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Lady Athyna · 04-11-2007 01:38 PM

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I like being quoted by Rednames, but not like this...

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You do of course realize, if anything ever happens to buffs you will be blamed.

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You could always blame me instead: I've bugged Castle about this for so long, at this point I just cut and paste my suggestion into a PM, he cuts and pastes his PM that says its too much work, and that basically covers it for another couple of months.

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<.<

Add rum.... or Kajmir...

Shhh.

JeetKuneDo · 04-11-2007 01:38 PM

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1 Blaster + 1 Blaster doesn't increase either Blaster's damage beyond their solo ability absent powers like Assault, which is a buff.

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I think they do. An energy blaster's knockback will make all the blasters safer. A safe blaster is doing more damage and running less. 2 Energy blasters would be more than twice as effective as just one. That's really the only blaster I know anything about.

So you'll have to nerf stacked knockback too.

LostCreation · 04-11-2007 01:43 PM

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The problem is that when the buffs stack mechanically the effects don't.

If I have 80% resistance and get +10% resistance I go from taking 20 dmg from that attack to 10 dmg. That +10% resistance means I can twice as many attacks before I go down. A tanker with 80% resistance on their own is twice as powerful with a +10% resistance buff from a defender.

But a blaster with 0% resistance on their own with +10% from a defender is only 10% more resistant. The buff is useless to them.

So with the current system a buff can be both overpowered and useless depending upon who gets buffed.

With diminishing returns you could make it so the buff reduced damage for anyone by 50%. So a blaster would take 50 dmg instead of 100, and the tanker would take 10 dmg instead of 20. Everyone wants the buff. It is useful for everyone but overpowered for no one.

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I always felt that the conceptually simplest solution would be to have a non-stacking base defense (or whatever) and then stacking additive defense. You could give every defensive power a relatively high base % and a relatively small additive defense. If you only have one defensive power active your defense would be base + additive. If you have multiple defenses you'd find the max base, and then add the sum of all additive defenses.

So, if Combat Jumping was a 5% + 1.875% for a Scrapper, used alone you'd get 6.875% defense. That's not bad, considering it's about half Super Reflex's tier 1 defense power. If Focused Fighting had a 10% + 3.875% (sum is what the power gives you now), it would stack as Max(10, 5) + Sum(1.875, 3.875) or 15.66. This is exactly what SR gets from the two powers today, so isn't anything to write home about if you're SR. But if you're an "I don't have any defenses" scrapper (or blaster, or whatever), I'd imagine you'd be pretty happy with getting hit ~13% less often.

You could make all the "marginal" buffs more worthwhile used alone, while simultaneously preventing stacking "abuse" and "easy mode" play. I'd imagine that most pool powers and many auto powers, would be greatly improved when they're used alone. For most other powers, you wouldn't loose any of the current power if they're used by themselves, but you'd also prevent them being so crazy effective when stacked.

Using Radiation Infection as an example of this last point, it could be done as 26.25% + 5.00%, or perhaps 21.25% +10.00% -- basically whatever numbers make stacking worthwhile without flooring the tohit as easily as stacked debuffs do now. If another debuff is applied, but has a larger base debuff, you'd use that instead (maybe Hurricane would have a 32.5% + 5.00% -- together with RE that'd be a 42.5% tohit debuff, whereas two REs would *only* be 36.25 using "X+5%" numbers.) (I don't actually know what the tohit floor is, so if these number don't make sense, substitute some that do.)

Anyway, that's how I'd do it, if I had a magic wand.

BurningChick · 04-11-2007 02:00 PM

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Sure! Then Weave could give 15% Defense, and Combat Jumping could give 25% Defense (or whatever) and combined, they'd give 30% instead of 40%. When the local FF Defender buffed the character, instead of the normal 25% for the FF, it'd be 5% for 35% defense.*

Basically, additional buffs would always be helpful, but the base level abilities could be made better and more useful across the board.

* Disclaimer: All numbers used illustratively and do not indicate any relation to what said values or formulae would actually be if we were ever to implement a system such as this, which I doubt.

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Err, wouldn't such a system essentially be going back to the Pre-ED "no one really needs buffs" situation that ED and the GDN were partially intended to fix?

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But ...

All of the +defense pool powers, especially Maneuvers, have absurdly low numbers because of the merest potential that they might stack with one of the rarest primaries in the game: Defender FF. Maneuvers is borderline useless without a lot of defense backing it up, and that's an absurd situation.

FF completely and totally borks up all defense for everyone who doesn't have lots of defense (or ToHit debuffs) to begin with.

Of course ...

Another way around this problem is, of course, to, you know, CHANGE FF so it has more than 3 powers teams appreciate. But I digress.

UnicyclePeon · 04-11-2007 02:15 PM

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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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Please, ghod, no.
/mad rush to finish and retire all buff/debuff characters

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Arcanaville · 04-11-2007 02:18 PM

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Err, wouldn't such a system essentially be going back to the Pre-ED "no one really needs buffs" situation that ED and the GDN were partially intended to fix?

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It depends on the buffs. If we are talking about things like defense and resistance, then actually the problem with those mechanics is that stacking currently has accelerating effects. Actually, each buff is stronger than the last one: when you stack 25% defense on top of 15% defense, Castle knows that the combination of the two is actually much stronger than the individual components of both. He's fine (in this example) giving two different powers significant numerical levels of defense, because individually they aren't game-breaking. What's game-breaking is when you stack them, and go from one power that cuts damage in half, plus another power that cuts damage by about a third, combining to cut damage by 80%. That's out of whack, and why defense (and resistance) stacking is problematic. You can't make individual powers too big, because they can stack to extremes.

Actually, a multiplicative stacking system - something that *appears* to have diminishing returns *numerically* - actually makes each buff worth exactly the same as the previous one. Its numerically diminishing, but in terms of value, its actually not.

Imagine a hypothetical defender with a 25% defense buff power. Buffing another player with no defense cuts incoming damage in half - critters with base 50% tohit used to hit 50% of the time, and now they hit 25% of the time. Damage cut in half.

The next such defender joins the team, and buffs everyone. Today, everyone would have 50% defense - effectively perma-eluded. The first defender cut incoming damage in half, but the second one cut the remaining incoming damage by 80%- from 25 hits out of 100 to 5. He was worth more than the first one.

In a multiplicatively stacked system, the second one would be worth the same amount as the first. The first one would cut incoming damage in half. The second one would do exactly the same thing. To do that, the second +25% defense, when stacked on top of the first +25% defense, would have to equal a net defense of +37.5% defense. There's math that makes it all work out, but the important thing is not the math: its the effect: everyone's defensive buffs are worth the same amount, to everyone, on every team, regardless of any pre-existing buffs.

And that means defense buffs and defense powers can be more easily balanced, and more generously given out, especially in power pools.

This is specifically true for defense buffs and resistance buffs (and for that matter, critter defense debuffs and resistance debuffs). For other things, like +damage and +regen, they don't work the same way, and probably are in less need of a "diminishing returns" system.

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EvilGeko · 04-11-2007 02:32 PM

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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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Lord help us, they'd do it if they could!

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Sure! Then Weave could give 15% Defense, and Combat Jumping could give 25% Defense (or whatever) and combined, they'd give 30% instead of 40%. When the local FF Defender buffed the character, instead of the normal 25% for the FF, it'd be 5% for 35% defense.*

Basically, additional buffs would always be helpful, but the base level abilities could be made better and more useful across the board.

* Disclaimer: All numbers used illustratively and do not indicate any relation to what said values or formulae would actually be if we were ever to implement a system such as this, which I doubt.

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Thanks for verifying what we've been saying forever Castle.

Everyone keeps saying this is nerf-herding. It's not. It's a way to correct the current problems around stacking buffs/debuffs.