should team buffs have diminishing returns?


ageone

 

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I said brought in line because depending on how the numbers worked out, heals could be too powerful or not powerful enough. Given the general difficulty level, I would guess heals would be pretty much OK and only need to be tweaked.


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That's what I mean. Heals don't work the way res and def do. We all know this when we talk about regen's downtime, or how it's great up to x many mobs, but vs x+1 it fails horribly. That doesn't happen to +def/+res.


 

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Ah well. I'm happy to know that the devs understand what we've been saying and would do it if it was possible. It validates my opinion that Castle really knows what he's doing.

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What I really hope is the MUO guys figured this all out before implementing their engine.

You guys know who you are: you *really* do not want me finding these same problems in the MUO engine. You really, really don't.

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Well, you'll probably just find new and different problems. Its not like there won't be any.


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* 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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The numbers don't matter*, I'm convinced you should go do this now.

Heck, I'll send you booze.

* Okay, they do in as much as everything should be effective.

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I don't condone booze.

So, I will send delicious pizza if this is implemented.


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What I really hope is the MUO guys figured this all out before implementing their engine.

You guys know who you are: you *really* do not want me finding these same problems in the MUO engine. You really, really don't.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't GOOOOooooo! *hangs on to Arcana's leg*


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Posted

Heres two simple questions regarding this idea.

1) How hard would it be on players to adapt to?
I'm honestly done revamping characters to deal with game altering changes. After 3 years, I want a stable game base, dagnabit!

2) How many fun additions to the game would be pushed back, yet again to tweak the mathmatical model?
We've allready spent 2+ issues making significant changes to the system that have helped contribute to pushing back fun things like new powersets or ATs, do we really need the Devs to spend more time nit-picking the system?

I'd rather have more toys, than more 'balance', I can ignore the complaining more easily than I can ignore the stagnation.


 

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QR


After reading this thread I can say I whole heartedly agree with Arcanas proposal. I really see no downside whatsoever, too bad it wont happen


 

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Heres two simple questions regarding this idea.

1) How hard would it be on players to adapt to?
I'm honestly done revamping characters to deal with game altering changes. After 3 years, I want a stable game base, dagnabit!

2) How many fun additions to the game would be pushed back, yet again to tweak the mathmatical model?
We've allready spent 2+ issues making significant changes to the system that have helped contribute to pushing back fun things like new powersets or ATs, do we really need the Devs to spend more time nit-picking the system?

I'd rather have more toys, than more 'balance', I can ignore the complaining more easily than I can ignore the stagnation.

[/ QUOTE ]

IMO, the current mechanics are stagnant, and not very satisfactory.

Also, it's not going to happen, as Castle very clearly stated.

But don't let that stop the panic!


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2) How many fun additions to the game would be pushed back, yet again to tweak the mathmatical model?
We've allready spent 2+ issues making significant changes to the system that have helped contribute to pushing back fun things like new powersets or ATs, do we really need the Devs to spend more time nit-picking the system?


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To be honest, we've seen the last of new ATs I'll bet. New ATs really are an anomaly for these types of games. Some games NEVER add a new class or AT.

As for powersets, we would be better allowing sets to cross ATs. It's quicker and more likely to happen.

But this change wouldn't be seen as anything but a buff to most people. It's not like ED. In fact, if you did this ED could and probably eventually would go away.


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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In the suggested fix, res and def are made almost equivalent

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I don't think you understand the suggestion. The suggestion doesn't change the relationship between defense, resistance, and regeneration at all. It only changes how they stack. Whatever the relationship is between something with 30% defense, 50% resistance, and 400% regeneration today is, under the suggested stacking change, that relationship would be exactly, precisely the same. It has to be: the change doesn't change the definition of "30% defense" or "50% resistance" or "400% regeneration:" those are all exactly, precisely as strong today as under the proposed change.

What changes is what happens when one thing buffs another thing: when 30% defense meets 20% more defense, say. It only changes stacking, not how defense or resistance or regeneration work.


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If you don't want to cause problems you should make all types of mitigation equal

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No. This always comes up eventually when talking about balance. The notion is, if you want balance, everything has to behave identically, or identically except for minor exceptions. That's pointless: it would be simpler to get rid of two and only use one. The whole point of having three different damage mitigation mechanisms is to have three different damage mitigation mechanisms. Its up to designers to use the proper mathematical techniques to ensure that sets constructed out of heterogenous components are nevertheless balanced according to a particular set of average metrics. It trivializes the design to make the different components transparently identical in performance.

As much as I've worked for balance in the game, I would rather have totally dissimilar and unbalanced mechanics than totally balanced but homogenous mechanics. Because that's pointless from a design perspective.


One additional subtle point:

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You're overlooking something you (and everyone, really) already know. Heals and regen have an immortality line. If players were unable to regen in combat, unless you were achieving 100% resistance or 50% defense, you'd eventually die, no matter what sort of damage you were facing. Not so with regen/heals. (Call it the low-downtime factor.)

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We compare what different damage mitigation powers do relative to a standard: the standard being something with no protective powers at all. Relative to this standard, we can say that X% defense mitigates a certain percentage of incoming attacks relative to having no defense, or Y% resistance mitgates a certain amount of incoming damage.

The base regeneration of such the standard isn't zero: its base regen: 100%/240 seconds. When you say something with no regen will die eventually even at high levels of defense, that's irrelevant to a discussion of the strength of defense, resistance, and regeneration. We compare +Def to something with zero defense, but we don't comare +Regen to something with zero regen, we compare to something with base regen. Regeneration powers amplify that base regen, they don't add regeneration to something without it.

Comparing X% defense and zero regeneration to something with Y% regeneration is subtly flawed: its using the wrong standard for comparison. In effect, not taking into account base regeneration is like not taking into account the base tohit of the attackers when looking at defense.


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Heres two simple questions regarding this idea.

1) How hard would it be on players to adapt to?
I'm honestly done revamping characters to deal with game altering changes. After 3 years, I want a stable game base, dagnabit!

2) How many fun additions to the game would be pushed back, yet again to tweak the mathmatical model?
We've allready spent 2+ issues making significant changes to the system that have helped contribute to pushing back fun things like new powersets or ATs, do we really need the Devs to spend more time nit-picking the system?

I'd rather have more toys, than more 'balance', I can ignore the complaining more easily than I can ignore the stagnation.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would argue that *if* this was ever done, it would open the door to a wealth of possibilities for adding new toys. Consider all the things they *can't* do now, because of broken stacking:

1. They can't make power pool protection powers simultaneously useful to squishies, and non-squishies.

2. They can't make well-balanced high-end teamed content, that doesn't involve totally negating highly stacked protections, because highly stacked protections are extreme enough to trivialize high end content.

3. They can't make something *somewhat* more dangerous to certain things: they generally make things *extremely* dangerous or not at all, because of the large range of possibilities that the game has to deal with (i.e. quartz eminators' +100% tohit buff, designed to hurt defense no matter how much of it you decided to bring along today).

4. They can't fix a lot of imbalances in PvP, especially but not exclusively around defense.


Think this is just a problem of the past? Nope:

5. They can't make single set IO buffs very large, because they might stack too high. So they have to make them very tiny, so that those who *do* stack a lot of them don't get game-breaking buffs.

6. They can't allow Defense sets to get very much more defense out of Inventions, even though they make it much easier for resistance sets to get more resistance, and regeneration/healing sets to get more healing.

7. They have to be very careful about handing out mez resistance.

8. They consider debuffing sets potentially dangerous to game balance to implement.


All specifically, *directly* attributable to the stacking problems in the game engine. How many things have we lost in this game due to the stacking problems? And what will the stacking problems take away from us tomorrow, that we might never even know we lost?


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What I really hope is the MUO guys figured this all out before implementing their engine.

You guys know who you are: you *really* do not want me finding these same problems in the MUO engine. You really, really don't.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't GOOOOooooo! *hangs on to Arcana's leg*

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MUO is probably at least two years away from launch, and I would bet closer to three. I don't think I'm going anywhere anytime soon either way.

I know next to nothing about MUO really, but I do know one or two little things. And I would love to see the design doc for MUO right now: just imagine all the problems in CoH that could have been trivially solved at this early stage of development that took years - and a lot of wasted work - to correct, if at all.

Think about the I7 defense scaler: it took a lot of time and effort to eventually get in, and before it was implemented, the devs spent even more time trying out other tweaks in the hopes it wouldn't be necessary. There was a moment in CoH's design where the entire problem could have been solved in ten seconds with a number two eraser (or if you prefer, a dozen keystrokes in Excel).

How many such issues exist in MUO right now (perhaps only on paper at the moment), that just a little numerical or mathematical analysis could preventatively solve, but will end up costing the players and the devs serious time to address after the system sees first light, I wonder.


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2. They can't make well-balanced high-end teamed content, that doesn't involve totally negating highly stacked protections, because highly stacked protections are extreme enough to trivialize high end content.

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But I *want* to be able to go crazy, get 8 buffers and/or debuffers, and trivialize all content, when possible. One of the biggest joys I get from the game is happening to get on a team that can streamroll anything because of insane stacking.

Will the changes take away my overkill? Dont take away my overkill. Mikey likes it.

Lewis


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2. They can't make well-balanced high-end teamed content, that doesn't involve totally negating highly stacked protections, because highly stacked protections are extreme enough to trivialize high end content.

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But I *want* to be able to go crazy, get 8 buffers and/or debuffers, and trivialize all content, when possible. One of the biggest joys I get from the game is happening to get on a team that can streamroll anything because of insane stacking.

Will the changes take away my overkill? Dont take away my overkill. Mikey likes it.

Lewis

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Most honest post in this thread.

But see, these overkill teams are the one and only thing that goes away. And a WHOLE LOT of new fun gets created at the same time.

Remember this:

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8. They consider debuffing sets potentially dangerous to game balance to implement.

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I said as much in beta, but every makes me out to be a troll or something. That I am, in fact, a troll doesn't mean I'm not right! Debuffs suffer for their power to stack. Not because they are so powerful individually.


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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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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how monumentally inane and to suggest that this is something that you would actually like to do is facical imo

All this change would do is make the people who spam defenders asking "are you a healer" justified as empath powers will not be fundamentally deminished by team make up.

"ooh theres a FF defender looking for a team, hmm we could get a whopping 5% def buff but this will increase the difficulty of the mission past sucess point"

I think its time for the devs to come out from the number clouds where they have been residing for far to long and spend a good few hours playing the game and exploring the actual working dynamics, "datamining" which is apparantly their blanket buzzword that solves all ills, in reality shows far less than they put stock in.

Now a deminishing effect from stacked buffs could be more logical but would still make certain sets like FF undesireable as opposed to the more proactive empathy.


 

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It used to be that one "Goose" could singlehandedly solo an AV (granted, AVs were a little wimpier back then), so the devs nerfed them. Nowadays a team of "Ganders" can, as a group, take out an AV. Again, not the same thing.


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Well I know it takes maybe 2 or 3 radioactive ganders to drop an AV these days. I've done all the Faultline AVs with just 2 rads (be they controller or defender) and a bubbler, and the bubbler was a second box so just applied buffs.

Personally, since Castle has announced that the brokenness will continue (woo hoo, yay brokenness!!), I've been contemplating a kin and sonic break the game SG, and I might as well do it. Combining the best resistance debuffer with the best damage booster should make the game cry for mercy. Also a team running around with 75% resistance to all but psi, with status protection should be pretty hard to kill.


Too many alts to list.

 

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2. They can't make well-balanced high-end teamed content, that doesn't involve totally negating highly stacked protections, because highly stacked protections are extreme enough to trivialize high end content.

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But I *want* to be able to go crazy, get 8 buffers and/or debuffers, and trivialize all content, when possible. One of the biggest joys I get from the game is happening to get on a team that can streamroll anything because of insane stacking.

Will the changes take away my overkill? Dont take away my overkill. Mikey likes it.

Lewis

[/ QUOTE ]

Most honest post in this thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

But in the end it all comes down to the fun factor. For all the flack Statseman has taken for his gameboy analogy and deciding what "fun" is for the players, the devs are obligated to try to make the game fun for the majority of their customers.

Can they please everyone? Definitely not.

Should they try to please as many as possible? Yes.

Logically, I agree with Arcanaville. In my gut, however, I feel that stackable buffs/debuffs are the glue that allow a wide variety of teams to do well in this game. Got a Healer™ and a bunch of Blasters? Probably don't need a tank. Got a bunch of buffing/debuffing Defenders? Don't need damage dealers. Got a really good Tank? Probably don't need a 'troller.


Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster


"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."

 

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Heals and regen have an immortality line.

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Oh, pish.

Everyone has an immorality line; mine's about 3 stiff drinks.


 

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What I really hope is the MUO guys figured this all out before implementing their engine.

You guys know who you are: you *really* do not want me finding these same problems in the MUO engine. You really, really don't.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't GOOOOooooo! *hangs on to Arcana's leg*

[/ QUOTE ]

MUO is probably at least two years away from launch, and I would bet closer to three. I don't think I'm going anywhere anytime soon either way.

I know next to nothing about MUO really, but I do know one or two little things. And I would love to see the design doc for MUO right now: just imagine all the problems in CoH that could have been trivially solved at this early stage of development that took years - and a lot of wasted work - to correct, if at all.

Think about the I7 defense scaler: it took a lot of time and effort to eventually get in, and before it was implemented, the devs spent even more time trying out other tweaks in the hopes it wouldn't be necessary. There was a moment in CoH's design where the entire problem could have been solved in ten seconds with a number two eraser (or if you prefer, a dozen keystrokes in Excel).

How many such issues exist in MUO right now (perhaps only on paper at the moment), that just a little numerical or mathematical analysis could preventatively solve, but will end up costing the players and the devs serious time to address after the system sees first light, I wonder.

[/ QUOTE ]
I am making a game and would like to hire you. Do you have about $10 million dollars in investment capital to lend me so I can do so?


 

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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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

how monumentally inane and to suggest that this is something that you would actually like to do is facical imo

All this change would do is make the people who spam defenders asking "are you a healer" justified as empath powers will not be fundamentally deminished by team make up.

"ooh theres a FF defender looking for a team, hmm we could get a whopping 5% def buff but this will increase the difficulty of the mission past sucess point"

I think its time for the devs to come out from the number clouds where they have been residing for far to long and spend a good few hours playing the game and exploring the actual working dynamics, "datamining" which is apparantly their blanket buzzword that solves all ills, in reality shows far less than they put stock in.

Now a deminishing effect from stacked buffs could be more logical but would still make certain sets like FF undesireable as opposed to the more proactive empathy.

[/ QUOTE ]
I do believe that I just heard the English language emit a resounding crack as you split it in two, followed by a pitiful wailing and thud as logic collapsed from a heart attack.


 

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Most honest post in this thread.

[/ QUOTE ]
Hey, wait, I also extolled the virtues of of broken mechanics!

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That I am, in fact, a troll ...

[/ QUOTE ]
Most honest quote in thread -1!

But, seriously, addressing the stacking buffs issues, such as they are, is a mountain of work that would touch nearly every aspect of gameplay, up to and including basic mission design. And I'm not sure the ROI would be enough to justify the time and money to do it. The perfect time to have done it would have been I5, concurrent with the GDR and before the subsequent change to def scaling.

But that's a long time ago.


 

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You're overlooking something you (and everyone, really) already know. Heals and regen have an immortality line.

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Dude.

Do you realize that it was Arcanaville who brought that terminology to the forums?

She's not the only one who came up with that analysis for Regen, but she's the one that made it known to the "masses", so to speak, and it has that name because that's what she called it.

So yeah, I don't think the immortality line thing is being overlooked. Really.

Everyone has some inherent regen, and so everyone has an immortality line. Defense and DR affect it just as regen rate does.


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Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

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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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

The downside being you'd have to learn Calculus to know your actual defense.


----------------------------
You can't please everyone, so lets concentrate on me.

 

Posted

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[ QUOTE ]
Most honest post in this thread.

[/ QUOTE ]
Hey, wait, I also extolled the virtues of of broken mechanics!

[ QUOTE ]
That I am, in fact, a troll ...

[/ QUOTE ]
Most honest quote in thread -1!

But, seriously, addressing the stacking buffs issues, such as they are, is a mountain of work that would touch nearly every aspect of gameplay, up to and including basic mission design. And I'm not sure the ROI would be enough to justify the time and money to do it. The perfect time to have done it would have been I5, concurrent with the GDR and before the subsequent change to def scaling.

But that's a long time ago.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's interesting, but this all started when they put I5/GDN on test. All these arguments have been putting around for two years. They were right then and the devs still did it and ED. Sigh...


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.

 

Posted

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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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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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The downside being you'd have to learn Calculus to know your actual defense.

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Not really. EQ2 has this and the game's UI does it for you.

Everything you do to add to your defense (called avoidance there) updates your Avoidance score in real time. And even without that, you never have the problem of too much defense anymore.

All additional defense/resistance is worthwhile.


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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It's interesting, but this all started when they put I5/GDN on test. All these arguments have been putting around for two years. They were right then and the devs still did it and ED. Sigh...

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I must've missed those threads since I was spending most of my time screeching that the GDR made FF defenders more desirable to have in a team, but much less desirable to actually play because of the disproportionately large nerf to DB. The overall lack of self-defense in FF made Statesman's suggestion that we use, as _Castle_ later described them, FF's situational aggro pigs to make up the difference laughable.

Especially since the effectiveness of of ToHit debuffs was left unchanged in I5.* Even ED didn't touch ToHit debuffs all that hard since most people were slotting one or two end redux in the big debuffs, anyway.

* The only big exception is whether or not you consider Dark Servant a debuff. At the time, few people did.