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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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.
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I cant really judge clearly. Most of the things others have said will be more fun under such a change, well, arent my idea of fun.
Also, keep in mind that the desire to form uber crushing teams will never go away. I know that I'm just going to be looking for the next big crush scenario, so that I can get back to experiencing the giddy glee of total destruction. They took that away from so many scenarios, but I keep finding other fun ways to do it, and apparently so do others (Green Machine, Repeat Offenders, etc).
If the idea is that the suggested changes will make an individual (or "first in") buffer / debuffer more effective, since the next one can be scaled down, such that the 3rd one isnt extraneous (as if that is even possible to an overkill crusher like me) then wont this just have some negative consequences for teams?
Specifically, right now, 1 of something is good. 2 of something is amazing. 3 of anything is uber to the point of the 3rd person being either not needed or to the point of the encounter being total overkill on the hardest stuff. However as someone who wants to get the most crushingly effective team possible, I'm not inviting the second person of the same effect type to my team, more than likely. I'm certainly not inviting the third! No, I'm going to go crazy overkill in width, not depth, in your new scenario. I have a force fielder. No more allowed, we have enough +Defense. OK, well, I'll take an Empathy Controller because the second line of defense from Fortitude isnt totally pointless and we could use some more mitigation, because the stacking has been nerfed, so lets get some helples floppage going from the empath's controller primary. Then bring me someone who can buff damage resist. Now give me someone who can debuff, something like say Rad. Now pile on some damage.
The second and subsequent force fielders or rad defenders or sonic bubblers arent welcome except as a last resort because, since they increased the effect of just one layer of buffs, I want to get as many DIFFERENT TYPES of leverage / magnification as possible. No more than one of each, so that we can crush all.
Now, I'm not saying I will be rude about it to the point of kicking people or refusing to team with people. Despite the power gamer streak in me, I *try* to team with "whoever". However, when choosing between 2 different whoevers, the powergamer in me is going to want to reject all duplicates and get a totally different type, so I can get the largest insane overkill possible. So when I have multiple invite options, that second bubbler may get a "no" because he wont contribute enough to the min-maxed overkill. "We have that already."
How is that an improvement on the current situation of the 3rd bubbler being either pointless or overkill? Seems to me there is some risk of creating a new kind of exclusionary min-max team, with even less redundancy being desired. One only has to look at the history of dumpster diving, smoke grenade blasting, 8 man defendering/controllering teams and think about human nature to see some serious risk in such a change.
I admit its total speculation on my part, in terms of such min/maxing catching on with power gamers at large, but I know it would be a temptation for me.
Lewis
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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.
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I'm sorry. I wasn't clear. I meant in terms of stacking. Right now, +res and +def stack multiplicatively. If this change goes through, in terms of stacking, +def and +res will be equivalent (in terms of damage mitigation, obviously). If I'm taking 50% of damage thanks to FF buffs, whether I bring in a sonic or FF doesn't really matter.
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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.
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Again, you're misreading me. I mean equivalent performance. The ideal situation is one where there's no difference in survivability between bringing a healer, +res'er or a +def'er. Healing does NOT offer the same performance. Sometimes it's far above, and sometimes it's far below. And you know this.
For one, healing reacts poorly to differences in hp. If a healer can double the survivability (read: time to die) of a defender, they won't be doubling the survivability of a tanker. The amount of damage mitigated via healing is exactly the same, of course. But +res or +def have no such restriction.
Let's suppose this change went through, and at the same time the game were made a lot more difficult, at least in terms of damage dealt. If all you cared about was, essentially, 'time to die', and assuming you can always pick and choose. You wouldn't choose an emp at first, because they just won't add the survivability of an FFer or Sonic. Likewise, once you have a couple of those, you probably wouldn't choose another one, since an emp will do a better job of mitigating what damage does get through, and reducing your downtime. There's an obvious difference in performance between the sets.
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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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I'm sorry, but you do realize you were the first one to use impossible values, right? Here:
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If it wasn't for the archetype caps, defense and resistance could do that: 50% defense and 100% resistance would both be perfect indestructibility. There's no level of regeneration that does that: it would take an effectively unlimited amount of regeneration to get the same approximate behavior.
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I was pointing out that under a very specific lens, healing can also provide functional immortality when it's high enough. In my case, I discounted all player regen. In your case, you assumed 50% def and 100% res to achieve actual immortality. Neither is possible.
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The downside being you'd have to learn Calculus to know your actual defense.
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Actually, no. All you'd have to do is make one tiny shift in perspective, and you'd be able to calculate, say, your net resistance under this scheme easily (I say resistance: its kinda tricky to calculate your effective defensive mitigation even now).
The shift in perspective is this: right now, we give defense and resistance powers a number. That number is a rating that says what it does. You might think that number is obvious, and not really subject to debate, but actually the number that's assigned is just slightly arbitrary, because there's actually *two* different perspectives you can have when looking at a resistance power. You could do what we are doing now, and specify how much (percentage) damage the power *blocks*, or you could specify how much damage the power *allows through*.
When we say tough has 11.25% resistance, what we are saying is that it blocks 11.25% of the damage it sees (for the damage types it works on). But we could say the opposite: we could say tough allows or admits 88.75% of the damage that it sees.
You might think that makes less sense, but actually, in many ways, it makes more sense to specify resistance powers as actually "admittance powers" and specify what they let through: for one thing, its immediately obvious how much damage you take if you have such a power: 88.75%.
Under the current stacking system, such a perspective does have a problem: its more difficult to calculate what the effect of two resistance powers is. If you have one res power that offers 10% resistance, and another that offers 20% resistance, in the current game the stacked combo is 10% + 20% = 30% resistance. Simple enough. If you specified those two by their admittance numbers, its harder: 90% admittance + 80% admittance = 70% admittance: 1 - (1 - 0.9) + (1 - 0.8). Very ugly.
But in a sense, this is the root of the stacking problem. They *shouldn't* have been looking at damage mitigated, but rather damage taken. That's the perspective that survival is based on. Damage mitigated isn't really important to game balance.
If they *had* looked at resistance powers in terms of their damage admittance, there would have been another very logical way to stack them. A 90% admittance power plus an 80% admittance power would stack multiplicatively: 0.9 * 0.8 = 0.72. Why is this obvious? Because if one power causes you to take 90% damage, and another power causes you to take 80% of what's left, then what you are taking is 80% of 90%, or 0.9 * 0.8.
The important thing is that mathematically, this stacking mechanics *preserves* the definition of "80% admittance" in the equation: it actually uses it to derive the stacking equation. 80% admittance means you take 80% of the original damage, period. It will always mean that, even if there is pre-existing resistance.
The current mechanic doesn't do that. When you just add up 10% resistance and 20% resistance, the 20% resistance power suddenly fails to have meaning. It *used* to mean "you take 20% less damage" but that is not how its being used in the stacking equation: that "property" of resistance is being broken. In effect, the current stacking equation is an arithmetical error: it *sounds* like it makes sense, but at a fundamental mathematical level, its wrong.
So: switch from telling players what the power mitigates, to what the power allows to get through, and people start multiplying instead of adding. For resistance, its that simple.
Unfortunately, its not going to quite *that* simple for defense, because unlike resistance, defense has a "sliding scale" of mitigation intrinsic in the fact that tohit buffs can change the mitigative/admittive meaning of defense numbers. But then again, how many people can actually correctly calculate their defensive mitigation currently? They can certainly add up their defense numbers, but that sum alone doesn't necessarily mean anything without properly taking into account tohit buffs/debuffs and accuracy.
But in the absence of all such factors, defense would follow a similar rule as resistance: you'd calculate admittance based on, say 50% tohit, then multiply them up, then convert back into defense. Or not: if you know what percentage of attacks are going to hit you, do you really even need to convert that back into defense numbers, since that's actually what most people want to know anyway?
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Do you realize that it was Arcanaville who brought that terminology to the forums?
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Yes, yes I do. That's why I said time and time again that they know all this.
Arcanaville tends to get tunnel-vision when it comes to certain topics that are near and dear to them. Topics involving MA and SR are the most visible of these.
In this sense, EvilGeko is a lot more honest: they'll lobby for MoG to be fixed while admitting that regen ain't hurting.
I'm not saying that this idea is bad: it certainly has its merits. I do also think there are issues to it that are being overlooked. One of them is that not all mitigation systems can be made equivalent in terms of performance, or at least not trivially.
Another is how this would affect team makeup. With stacked buffs never reaching the stratosphere, would you now need tankers? Would squishies never safely be able to take aggro?
What about damage buffs: stacking additively hurts them, would this be in fact strengthening them? Or in fact, would they implement diminishing returns, as the OP suggests (in terms of what to what? each FS bub in relation to the next?)?
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Again, you're misreading me. I mean equivalent performance. The ideal situation is one where there's no difference in survivability between bringing a healer, +res'er or a +def'er. Healing does NOT offer the same performance. Sometimes it's far above, and sometimes it's far below. And you know this.
For one, healing reacts poorly to differences in hp. If a healer can double the survivability (read: time to die) of a defender, they won't be doubling the survivability of a tanker. The amount of damage mitigated via healing is exactly the same, of course. But +res or +def have no such restriction.
Let's suppose this change went through, and at the same time the game were made a lot more difficult, at least in terms of damage dealt. If all you cared about was, essentially, 'time to die', and assuming you can always pick and choose. You wouldn't choose an emp at first, because they just won't add the survivability of an FFer or Sonic. Likewise, once you have a couple of those, you probably wouldn't choose another one, since an emp will do a better job of mitigating what damage does get through, and reducing your downtime. There's an obvious difference in performance between the sets.
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This has nothing to do with stacking. Regeneration mechanically works differently from defense, or resistance. The suggested change, for the last time, alters the way defense powers are summed, and resistance powers are summed. It does not change how a particular value of defense or resistance works, how strong it is, or how it compares to the other mitigation types. If you think regeneration has the "problem" you're describing above, its not a property of the stacking suggestion: its a property of the way those mitigation methods work, and *no* change in how they stack would alter that. Its irrelevant to the stacking issue.
And why would they make the game more difficult after this change? It makes the highest levels of performance achievable lower, and lower levels of performance sometimes higher, under heavily stacked conditions. Why would that cause the devs to make the game harder?
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I'm sorry, but you do realize you were the first one to use impossible values, right? Here:
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If it wasn't for the archetype caps, defense and resistance could do that: 50% defense and 100% resistance would both be perfect indestructibility. There's no level of regeneration that does that: it would take an effectively unlimited amount of regeneration to get the same approximate behavior.
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I was pointing out that under a very specific lens, healing can also provide functional immortality when it's high enough. In my case, I discounted all player regen. In your case, you assumed 50% def and 100% res to achieve actual immortality. Neither is possible.
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There's a difference. My statement was simply a simplification to make a point I could make by keeping the caps and resorting to additional but unnecessary math. My point was that defense and resistance strength rise asymptotically to infinity as they approach a limit, which is why the caps exist at all: the caps exist to prevent basically inifinite survivability. That's not true for regeneration: the regeneration caps are incredibly high: usually 2000% to 3000%. And there's no healing cap at all.
On the other hand, my problem with your comparison is not that the numbers you are using are "impossible" its that they are meaningless. Its meaningless to compare X% defense and zero regeneration to anything, not because no one has zero regeneration, but because that's not an appropriate standard for comparison. Why compare defense to zero defense: that's not the lowest that defense can go: a resting player has -10000% defense. That's actually the zero point for defense: why don't you use that point of comparison instead? You're using zero only because you think zero is always the correct starting point for a mathematical comparison, but that's not true.
When someone asks the question "how strong is X% defense" the logical question to ask in return is "relative to what?" The default answer is usually "relative to not having X% defense." Such a player has zero defense, any amount of resistance (conveninently set to zero, but it doesn't matter), and base regen.
The same thing is true when we talk about Regeneration itself: we don't say 400% regeneration is 400 points better than someone with zero regen: that's nonsensical. We say 400% regeneration is four times better than someone with 100% regeneration: the base.
Anything else lacks justifiable meaning. Its not just about calculating a blizzard of numbers. Each number has to mean something, or the calculations are worthless. Comparing X% defense and zero regen to anything is asking the question: relative to someone with no regeneration at all, how strong is X% defense? And the answer is: who cares: that's only meaningful in certain weird corner cases of comparison, and not the general case.
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You know, I always look at the really bad ideas in the suggestions forum and I'm NEVER one of those people that comes on and bashes the person for his bad idea. If anything, I try to offer alternatives to make it a better idea. Honestly, this is worse idea I have ever seen, and only because its so planned out....like some kind of evil plot to take over the world.
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That's a wonderful argument for why this is a bad idea...oh wait..it's not.
There are no arguments here being put forth by anyone opposed to making buffs fair. There are just a lot of people who play buff/debuff sets who don't think what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
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I know it's kind of hard to tell on teh intarwebz but I wasn't being entirely serious, nor was I attempting to come up with any kind of counter to this idea. I thought the evil genius bit would give it away. Oh well, I guess I should just follow the general rule of adding a 
when I'm not being serious.
Arcanaville,
Your patience in repeatedly explaining the math to people who can't or won't understand is just amazing. I wish I had half that.
Anyway, ever since GDN+ED, I haven't played much, but kept my subscription in the faint hope that the devs would fix stacking so they could unnerf. I can't really hold out that hope any longer. From my own musings and experiments, I decided that polynomial mitigation was the best way to balance stacking (mitigation goes 1,2,3,4,... instead of 1,2,4,8,... like Arcanaville's proposal or 1,2,10,infinity like the current game) but based on this thread, that change would be frightening and too complicated for a lot of people.
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Unfortunately, its not going to quite *that* simple for defense, because unlike resistance, defense has a "sliding scale" of mitigation intrinsic in the fact that tohit buffs can change the mitigative/admittive meaning of defense numbers. But then again, how many people can actually correctly calculate their defensive mitigation currently? They can certainly add up their defense numbers, but that sum alone doesn't necessarily mean anything without properly taking into account tohit buffs/debuffs and accuracy.
But in the absence of all such factors, defense would follow a similar rule as resistance: you'd calculate admittance based on, say 50% tohit, then multiply them up, then convert back into defense. Or not: if you know what percentage of attacks are going to hit you, do you really even need to convert that back into defense numbers, since that's actually what most people want to know anyway?
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Right, defense would function just like damage with a die roll to see if it actually then happened.
Base to hit chance is 75%. Aim doubles hit chance so X 2 (instead of +100%). So they would have a 150% chance to hit.
An ice tanker might have a base -50% chance to be hit which would halve the to hit chance. It would be 150 X 1/2 = 75% chance to hit.
Note that this is vastly better defense against aim than it provides now where aims is +100% and a -50% would add up to a 125% chance to hit.
Throw on a defender buff that gives 33% defense and the to hit is 75 x 2/3 = 50% chance to hit.
After all of the to hit and defense multipliers you then still do the random calculation if it hits, unlike damage. But the mechanics are the same.
I agree that the game needs diminishing returns on buffs. Seriously. Like, right now. The reason why is best illustrated by going to an extreme example.
Super Burger can only be hit by a roll of 19 or 20 on a 20-sided die. This is 90% Defense.
Electric Mayonnaise can only be hit by a roll of 17, 18, 19, or 20. This is 80% Defense.
They have the same number of hit points (100) and they face incoming damage of 25 per attack.
In the average round, Super Burger will take (25 x 0.10) 2.5 points of damage. Electric Mayonnaise will take (25 x 0.20) = 5.0 points of damage.
Even though Super Burger only has 10% "more defense," he will last about 40 rounds in combat (100 / 2.5), and Electric Mayonnaise will only last half of that: 20 rounds (100 / 5.0). 10% difference in defense = 100% more survival.
Now give each of them a +1 Defense (say, a magic shield, or a Force Field bubble). That +1 shield reduces Super Burger's incoming damage by 50%, but it only reduces Electric Mayonnaise's by 25%.
With that +1 shield, Super Burger will now take 1.25 damage and last eighty rounds, while Electric Mayonnaise takes 3.75 points and only survives for twenty-seven. Who got the better deal by that +1 bonus? Obviously it was of more benefit to the guy who was already way ahead! Instead of lasting twice as long, Super Burger now survives three times as long!
Multiplicative defense, as I follow the math, would be like a +25% Shield instead. Super Burger's damage would be reduced by 25% (so he takes 1.875 damage instead of 2.5) and Electric Mayonnaise would also be reduced by 25% (so he takes 3.75 instead of 5.0).
Change in survival time: with the shield, Super Burger goes from surviving 40 rounds to surviving 54, and Electric Mayonnaise's survival time leaps from 20 rounds to 27.
Get it? 40 is to 54 as 20 is to 27: their survival rates remain equal. Super Burger still lasts twice as long, so the two have received the same relative benefit. A device which claims to grant equal benefit to all now actually does provide equal benefit to all.
I like it. Maybe this means that all-Defender teams can no longer trivialize content and steamroll through missions, but aren't we complaining that the game is already too easy?
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Multiplicative defense, as I follow the math, would be like a +25% Shield instead. Super Burger's damage would be reduced by 25% (so he takes 1.875 damage instead of 2.5) and Electric Mayonnaise would also be reduced by 25% (so he takes 3.75 instead of 5.0).
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Yes. Already linear effect stacking buffs like Commander Ketchup's damage buffs, or the regeneration of The Cheese Whiz, would be unaffected by this suggestion. They might have other issues worth investigating separately, but probably not addressable by any stacking change specifically.
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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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Quoting makes it true! ;-)
My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
"The tip of a shoelace is called an aglet, its true purpose is sinister." The Question
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 like it. Maybe this means that all-Defender teams can no longer trivialize content and steamroll through missions, but aren't we complaining that the game is already too easy?
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All-defender teams would still steamroller content since the additive (de)buffs like +damage and -resistance would be unchanged.
UnicyclePeon said;
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The second and subsequent force fielders or rad defenders or sonic bubblers arent welcome
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Right now, in your powergaming attitude, the choice between a buffing/debuffing corruptor and a dominator is clear. The corruptor gets in. How is it more fair for you to have to reject a dominator (or any other damage/tank class), but it isn't fair that you have to reject another buffer/debuffer? You said it would decrease you wanting to team with certain people, right now, you don't want to team with non buffers/debuffers, but that's alright? It isn't alright to have to reject them? Everything you said reinforces what they want to do, bring more diversification to the team, so that the tankers, scrappers, blasters, dominators, stalkers, and brutes have room in the uber team, not just defenders, corruptors, and controllers.
ValkyrieRising said;
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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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How is this different than what it is now? You say you don't like this because people would have to look for other powersets they don't already have, making this a selective grouping experience. Under this proposal, everyone would have a spot in the group, and not be restricted to defenders, controllers, and corruptors to have the best possible group. It is already restrictive, to only 3 ATs to have that group that can decimate a Ruthless mission.
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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.
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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I have to agree. Hertz's example was top-notch.
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The funny thing is, I just reread it and the numbers are wrong. Super Burger and Electric Mayonnaise should start with 25 hit points, not 100. 
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Right now, in your powergaming attitude, the choice between a buffing/debuffing corruptor and a dominator is clear. The corruptor gets in. How is it more fair for you to have to reject a dominator (or any other damage/tank class), but it isn't fair that you have to reject another buffer/debuffer? You said it would decrease you wanting to team with certain people, right now, you don't want to team with non buffers/debuffers, but that's alright? It isn't alright to have to reject them? Everything you said reinforces what they want to do, bring more diversification to the team, so that the tankers, scrappers, blasters, dominators, stalkers, and brutes have room in the uber team, not just defenders, corruptors, and controllers.
How is this different than what it is now? You say you don't like this because people would have to look for other powersets they don't already have, making this a selective grouping experience. Under this proposal, everyone would have a spot in the group, and not be restricted to defenders, controllers, and corruptors to have the best possible group. It is already restrictive, to only 3 ATs to have that group that can decimate a Ruthless mission.
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With the possible exception of the LRSF, I almost never see those uber groups forming naturally. When they are in play it is because people have got together and organised one from the start, forming a semi-permanent team lineup. And I'm very confident those all-defender uberteams would continue to exist and continue to trivialise and steamroll content under the proposed system here - they'd just need to choose a slightly more specific lineup of powersets when they were planning the team. As for the dominator being passed over for the corruptor, that'd still happen, and probably to the same extent.
I PuG a lot (almost exclusively - soloing bores me, and most of my SG(s) have long since left for other games) and the teams I'm being invited to are already diverse. Any lack of a given AT presence tends to be down to population numbers rather than being outcast for not being buff/debuff. The uberteams are not part of normal play. And you don't even need those buff/debuff uberteams to decimate a ruthless mission - the diverse teams can manage it quite easily. It's kinda hit and miss to find a PuG version being as it relies on the majority of the team being good at the game, but it can and does happen.
I suspect the effect this would have on team diversity is roughly the same as the effect ED had on slotting diversity - the average player doesn't notice it much, while the powergamer now has a slightly different and/or more specific configuration for 'uber'. The dominators and stalkers of the world won't find themselves in a much better position when the PuG leaders are recruiting.
I agree Biowrath. PUG teams aren't even on my top ten list of why this is a good idea. Primariliy, this is a good idea for two BIG reasons:
1) It's more generally fair; meaning that many very weaker powers could be improved because you won't have to worry about overpowered buffs/debuffs.
2) Content can be designed more reasonably since you'll have less variance in team power levels.
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.
For what it's worth I'm personally not opposed to this idea in principle and I do think it probably should have been this way from the start.
However I'm not in favour of it being changed to this now as I don't think the increase in fun it would bring - whether directly or in the form of superior future content design - are proportionate with the resources required to make the change at this stage. (Course, as a humble player I realise I actually have no idea what the resources required are, but as a forum dweller I'm still gonna have that opinion )
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I have to agree. Hertz's example was top-notch.
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The funny thing is, I just reread it and the numbers are wrong. Super Burger and Electric Mayonnaise should start with 25 hit points, not 100.
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Oops! Good point, I'll go fix that actually, I'll leave the hit points at 100 and change the number of rounds survived, because that'll be a better illustration. No matter how high your defense, a 25-point attack could still one-shot a 25-hit-point player in the first round.
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For what it's worth I'm personally not opposed to this idea in principle and I do think it probably should have been this way from the start.
However I'm not in favour of it being changed to this now as I don't think the increase in fun it would bring - whether directly or in the form of superior future content design - are proportionate with the resources required to make the change at this stage. (Course, as a humble player I realise I actually have no idea what the resources required are, but as a forum dweller I'm still gonna have that opinion )
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I think three years in, there's no chance they'll do this. It rips out the powers systems and puts a new one in, in a lot of ways.
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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For what it's worth I'm personally not opposed to this idea in principle and I do think it probably should have been this way from the start.
However I'm not in favour of it being changed to this now as I don't think the increase in fun it would bring - whether directly or in the form of superior future content design - are proportionate with the resources required to make the change at this stage. (Course, as a humble player I realise I actually have no idea what the resources required are, but as a forum dweller I'm still gonna have that opinion )
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I think three years in, there's no chance they'll do this. It rips out the powers systems and puts a new one in, in a lot of ways.
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I agree it is very unlikely. However once you decide it's too late to fix the core of problems and just try to paper over them you are deliberately deciding to let the game start to die.
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For what it's worth I'm personally not opposed to this idea in principle and I do think it probably should have been this way from the start.
However I'm not in favour of it being changed to this now as I don't think the increase in fun it would bring - whether directly or in the form of superior future content design - are proportionate with the resources required to make the change at this stage. (Course, as a humble player I realise I actually have no idea what the resources required are, but as a forum dweller I'm still gonna have that opinion )
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I think three years in, there's no chance they'll do this. It rips out the powers systems and puts a new one in, in a lot of ways.
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Stranger things have happened with larger MMOs based on "can't miss" IP, so I wouldn't be suprised if we saw a "New Game Experience"-like revamp when CoX is in its death throes.
Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster
"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."
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For what it's worth I'm personally not opposed to this idea in principle and I do think it probably should have been this way from the start.
However I'm not in favour of it being changed to this now as I don't think the increase in fun it would bring - whether directly or in the form of superior future content design - are proportionate with the resources required to make the change at this stage. (Course, as a humble player I realise I actually have no idea what the resources required are, but as a forum dweller I'm still gonna have that opinion )
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I think three years in, there's no chance they'll do this. It rips out the powers systems and puts a new one in, in a lot of ways.
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Stranger things have happened with larger MMOs based on "can't miss" IP, so I wouldn't be suprised if we saw a "New Game Experience"-like revamp when CoX is in its death throes.
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Good point. Perhaps after MUO is up and running and people can't figure out why they're sticking around.
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.
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When GDN hit, I was so ticked off for my Ill/FF. The first time I decide to put min-maxing on the wayside and build a character for fun, it gets nerfed to the point that much of her offense (armies of Phantasm) was gone and her defense (Dispersion Bubble) was made nearly meaningless.
Sure, with that many distraction controls she's still fine, but it was cold comfort at best to only have this to console me:
"Well at least I'm not a FF DEFENDER!"
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.