Discussion: Interview on Ten Ton Hammer about I13
By
Acemace,
Posted on: 2008-09-26 24:19 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
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Yeah because I'm sure castle totally said nerf.
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To start, we rebalanced the Patron powers and the Epic powers that villains and heroes get so they're more in line with each other. We looked at what players were picking more often and changed some powers completely and pruned some powers.
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No Matt said "pruned" = Euphemism in it's purest form... 
And he used the infamous phrase "more in line with" which is also a common way to say "nerfed the stuffing out of".
or roughly - "we changed stuff and we already KNOW y'all aren't gonna like it - but that's just tough luck sucker!"
And the infamous "We made some changes for er... uhm... Game Balance - Next question, (*whisper* quickly, please?!)"
All joking aside - it was said elsewhere that Power Balancing changes wouldn't affect PvE at all.
So, I'm guessing they aren't going to "Axe" any powers completely - or if they really do add or remove some powers they'll consider that something other than a "PvP Power Balance change" per se. IDK, we'll find out soon enough I suppose.
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Dude, Patron Powers suck, and that's all there is to it. "Bringing them inline with each other" can mean many things, not just what you are assuming.
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It's not even that Patrons suck so much
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Yes, it is. :P
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It's not even that Patrons suck so much as it's that there is no neutral powers that can be used by any character. If your character doesn't want to shoot electricity, puke chum on people, fart ghost sharks, or use an arachnos mace....your SoL.
How bout' an Elite Malta Gunslinger patron with dual pistol powers? Vangaurd Patron? Rularru patron? Carnie Patron? How about opening up a bit? or just give villains a choice between Patron powers or the same EPPs heroes get.
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Ok, how about NO PATRONS AT ALL, because looking up to someone is more of a HERO thing, and villains are usually out for themselves?
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The BEST part of the article...
"One of the things when we started the studio was to make hires in the "Powers" department. Not only do we have more people to work on the powers, but we can also now take a fine-toothed comb to the power system and get some data mining and cold hard facts on the powers and how they're being used. "
I've been hopeful that someone with less than a "sledgehammer onna eggshell" style might try their hand at PvP / Powers, etc. I'm cautious - I love the ideas, and my main reservation had been on the implementations. To be totally blunt, many of the Devs have taken a far too "high and mighty" approach to clearly broken structures. They've accepted some ..... questionable.... inequities for an inexcusably long time with some ... questionable... defenses.
I can't assume they didn't get it, and I can't assume they didn't care. Particularly since BaBs brooks nobody even coming close to impugning their stellar perceptive and nearly god-like analytical abilities and infallibility.
We'll see who puts it in and how they do.
I'm rooting for it. But I feel like a Chicago Cubs fan - "Just wait till we don't mess it up next Issue!" - and I'm hoping we can break the curse at some point.
Even so, I'm (usually) loving a game that kicks PvP over and over... ow... oww.... Not in the face!
Here we go, Chuck. I hope that's not Lucy in disguise.
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Noone knows how many options we will have as far as powers for created enemy NPCs. If we can select powers to build NPCs that would be great, but I suspect it will be more like we choose existing NPCs and just reskin/rename them. That's fine with me, but I do have a suggestion.
Don't just make AVs/Heroes reskinnable. Make all enemy NPCs from minions on up reskinnable. If possible, even make the pedestrians walking around customizable.
My main suggestion is to allow us to pick and choose minions, Leuitenants, and bosses from different enemy factions, reskin and rename them, and put them together to form our own player created enemy factions. These player created factions can be listed just like the player created missions to be rated and even used by other players. Player created factions that earn the Devs Choice or Hall of Fame could even find there way into radio/paper missions.
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You are also forgetting a huge other item. Picking the costume sets from other groups. I want to make a mission where the minions are actually the "Bosses" of a lower level groups. I can come close in the costume editor, but it'd be a heck of a lot easier if I could just pick existing NPC skins and reuse them Granted that you wouldn't be able to customize the look further cause otherwise it'd be insanely time consuming to make costume editors for em all.
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A lot of these things are ready to go and we're tightening down the bolts on the last few things before we can send this to the training room for players to see. It would be irresponsible of us to not get this in the fans of players.
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So I13 is designed to run off of my fan? I wish somebody would have said that before I ordered my new comp, I'd have ordered bigger fans instead of bigger processors and graphics cards...
Seriously, this issue sounds cool, I am glad for the details to finally come out, it took a while but boy do we have some information now! Once again impressed by how much the developers of this game seem to listen to the community and respond to many of the things people are asking for.
Go Devs and bring on the power! Though not so much with the responsibility.
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What I'd like some clarity on is a statement by Castle where he says the powers will be just like they were in PVE, and in PVP enabled zones they will have a nerfed performance.
My question is if a given power that only buffs me gets a PVP nerf, does that mean when I go to a PVP Zone for PVE reasons (Shivans, Nukes, RV prestige hunting) that my powers are similarly nerfed?
This might be a serious issue with some folks who love their APPs.
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The way i read the given info from here and other Dev posts is the APPs and PPPs will be balanced out for PvE and PvP, most likely a small nerf to APPs and a balanced buff to PPPs.
Other powers that can be balanced for PvP only will be the powers that have seperate Codeing for Critters and Players. Powers like buffs and location powers normally dont have that luxury so they, i assume from previous mentioning, will be uneffected while other powers will have the VS Player component rebalanced leaving the VS Critter component as is.
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If Arcanaville's anti-Defense idea got implemented, I might die of pure joy and delight. Very little chance of that, though.
I'd look for Aim and Buildup to be much less potent in PvP. After all, if I invest my entire secondary in gaining Defense, why should someone be able to overcome it 100% with only 2 powers? The answer of course is, they shouldn't. Aim and Buildup should improve your chances of hitting in PvP, but it shouldn't necessarily guarantee it.
And I can't believe the PPPs are going to be buffed. That's long overdue and beyond fantastic!
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Anti-Defence requires a rework of the powers and adding a mechanic. Why not make Said Build ups Lesser in Tohit Buffs and add an accuracy compnonent per Tactical Training: offencive. 3rd Party tohit buffs should probably be left well alone or reduced to a lesser degree. That would make Pure Defence Viable in PvP without adding an additional Mechanic. Sure its a bandaid but still a half decent idea.
Tho given the thoughts in my 3rd quote, Anti-Defence is a destinct possibility, which makes me very happy.
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Matt: But if you read between the lines, you could probably infer some features
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Wasnt there some mention by one of the Devs of Custom NPCs bordering on Power Customisation? MA is pretty much complete from what i can gather, as is the majority of i13.
Pretty much a certinty that no Power Proliferation is on the books for the next 2-3 issues. So from now until the end of march they have alot less on their plate, i assume. So what else could they do for 6 Months? Work on i15, more Booster Packs or Power Customisation?
Forgive me if im feeding the masses for conspiracy and False hope/expectation. 
You'd probably have to be careful about custom Minions. The customized Bosses will probably put a strain on people's computers similar to that of player characters due to the customization, so a mission full of customized spawns could bring a lot of people's games to a crawl, just as if the mission were full of dozens of player characters (think Freedom Atlas Park).
Personally, I think getting the ability to customize Bosses and the like is plenty. And we almost didn't even get that much (but now we do-- yay!)
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This sounds ominous:
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To start, we rebalanced the Patron powers and the Epic powers that villains and heroes get so they're more in line with each other. We looked at what players were picking more often and changed some powers completely and pruned some powers.
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Patron buff or Epic nerf?
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Well obviously this was the first comment in the article that really jumped out at a lot of us.
Let's hope it's a patron buff. Since they're allowing patron respec, a little more variety in the choices would seem appropriate, rather than making the epics all copy-cat-ish like the patrons have been.
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Brian: The most important thing that most of the players are requesting is the ability to change the costumes and customize the look of the bosses and things like that in the mission creator.
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You know, there's a side to all this I don't really think anyone's considered yet.
The improved MA has to work both ways, doesn't it? By improving the toolbox so that players can customise allies and baddies, surely that means the Devs will now have much greater freedom to do exactly the same thing in the official missions?
From what I can remember, the MA started out as a Dev tool. Unless I'm misreading something somewhere, a greatly improved MA will surely result in more and better mission content in the Issues, as well as giving us the customisation we wanted.
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Another step closer to "Evil Clone" missions, perhaps? Also means that maybe we'll finally see more NPC supergroups ala the Civic Squad.
Also, hooray for likely Focused Accuracy nerf!
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What I'd like some clarity on is a statement by Castle where he says the powers will be just like they were in PVE, and in PVP enabled zones they will have a nerfed performance.
My question is if a given power that only buffs me gets a PVP nerf, does that mean when I go to a PVP Zone for PVE reasons (Shivans, Nukes, RV prestige hunting) that my powers are similarly nerfed?
This might be a serious issue with some folks who love their APPs.
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I'd love to make such a statement for you, but it'd be a lie. The changes for APPs/PPPs are more widespread.
The basic tack we took was "if the power is not being taken by the players, replace it with something that is." So, a number of formerly heroside only powers are now available on villainside, and a number of powers have been replaced by something we feel will be more useful in general.
I'll be very interested in seeing the reactions to the new lists in Beta.
As for the PVP zones, yes, doing PVE content there will be harder.
Which is why the xp reward will be greater, yes (as it is now IIRC)?
Any chance the 30 minute time limit on getting the PvP extra xp bonuses for mission completion will be eliminated?
EDIT: Gah, I've been surrounded by Castle!
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All joking aside - it was said elsewhere that Power Balancing changes wouldn't affect PvE at all.
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I think either what you read was incorrect or you misunderstood. I'm quite certain the PVE specific changes that were made for I13 will affect PVE, while 95% of the PVP changes have no effect on PVE (I say 95% to hedge my bets, actually.)
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All joking aside - it was said elsewhere that Power Balancing changes wouldn't affect PvE at all.
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I think either what you read was incorrect or you misunderstood. I'm quite certain the PVE specific changes that were made for I13 will affect PVE, while 95% of the PVP changes have no effect on PVE (I say 95% to hedge my bets, actually.)
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I'll take those odds!
Or rather, I'll bet that some people will still complain about it effecting PvE, whether it does or not 
Also, finally, after 4+ years: First after a Redname!
Ooo, I hadn't thought of that. So a power like Short Circuit isn't going to drain endurance very well against NPC enemies in Siren's Call. That will hurt a bit. (Though I'll also have a second build to use specifically in those zones, so it won't hurt as much as it might have.)
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All joking aside - it was said elsewhere that Power Balancing changes wouldn't affect PvE at all.
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I think either what you read was incorrect or you misunderstood. I'm quite certain the PVE specific changes that were made for I13 will affect PVE, while 95% of the PVP changes have no effect on PVE (I say 95% to hedge my bets, actually.)
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I'll take those odds!
Or rather, I'll bet that some people will still complain about it effecting PvE, whether it does or not
Also, finally, after 4+ years: First after a Redname!
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The biggest issue is that almost all PvE changes affect PvP, therefore anything that was done for PvE purposes also touch PvP, and people will come up with excuses saying the true reason for that change was not PvE but PvP.
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What I'd like some clarity on is a statement by Castle where he says the powers will be just like they were in PVE, and in PVP enabled zones they will have a nerfed performance.
My question is if a given power that only buffs me gets a PVP nerf, does that mean when I go to a PVP Zone for PVE reasons (Shivans, Nukes, RV prestige hunting) that my powers are similarly nerfed?
This might be a serious issue with some folks who love their APPs.
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I'd love to make such a statement for you, but it'd be a lie. The changes for APPs/PPPs are more widespread.
The basic tack we took was "if the power is not being taken by the players, replace it with something that is." So, a number of formerly heroside only powers are now available on villainside, and a number of powers have been replaced by something we feel will be more useful in general.
I'll be very interested in seeing the reactions to the new lists in Beta.
As for the PVP zones, yes, doing PVE content there will be harder.
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So basically its a safe bet to say villains will finally get stuff like focus accuracy, conserve power, power buildup? If so then w00t. That totally changes the 40+ game for me and what IOs I will be using. So to sum it up this is the end of devs hate villains and the begining of devs love villains but hate heroes.
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Ooo, I hadn't thought of that. So a power like Short Circuit isn't going to drain endurance very well against NPC enemies in Siren's Call. That will hurt a bit. (Though I'll also have a second build to use specifically in those zones, so it won't hurt as much as it might have.)
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I don't think it will affect "Targeted Powers" so much. There's already a framework to tell the difference between a player and a critter when it gets hit by something.
Take focused accuracy: It normally provides X Perception and Y ToHit in PVE. I decided to go to RV and the game realized I'm PVP enabled and so it reduced the Perception and ToHit Bonuses to PVP levels. I may spend the entire time in RV smashing NPC if the place is empty, but I'd be doing it at lower bonuses that if I did PVE content. (Although the bosted Prestige/Infamy sort of compansates for it)
But it sounds like what Castle's saying is a lot of powers are going to get the "Rusty Hatchet" job for being so obnoxiously overpowered for so long.
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All joking aside - it was said elsewhere that Power Balancing changes wouldn't affect PvE at all.
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I think either what you read was incorrect or you misunderstood. I'm quite certain the PVE specific changes that were made for I13 will affect PVE, while 95% of the PVP changes have no effect on PVE (I say 95% to hedge my bets, actually.)
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I'll take those odds!
Or rather, I'll bet that some people will still complain about it effecting PvE, whether it does or not
Also, finally, after 4+ years: First after a Redname!
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You mean, no matter how clearly their new tech lets them separate PvE power effects from PvP, people will blame PvP for any/all nerfs and/or unwanted changes to their powers in PvE?
...DUH!
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The basic tack we took was "if the power is not being taken by the players, replace it with something that is." So, a number of formerly heroside only powers are now available on villainside, and a number of powers have been replaced by something we feel will be more useful in general.
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This will be nice, I'll probably lose a power I like because it didn't win a popularity contest. 
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Particularly since BaBs brooks nobody even coming close to impugning their stellar perceptive and nearly god-like analytical abilities and infallibility.
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I realise this is 2 pages ago, but "believing yourself to be infallible and godlike" != "resenting being called lazy and stupid."
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The basic tack we took was "if the power is not being taken by the players, replace it with something that is." So, a number of formerly heroside only powers are now available on villainside, and a number of powers have been replaced by something we feel will be more useful in general.
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Wait.
Are you saying powers are being REMOVED from APPs/PPPs? D:
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The basic tack we took was "if the power is not being taken by the players, replace it with something that is." So, a number of formerly heroside only powers are now available on villainside, and a number of powers have been replaced by something we feel will be more useful in general.
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I.e., a lot of pets are about to go away I bet. And probably much of leviathan. And I can't make educated gueses from there.
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I'll be very interested in seeing the reactions to the new lists in Beta.
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I'll adapt to whatever gets tossed at me, but I'm sure we both know that there's gonna be much wailing and gnashing of teeth, no matter how positive the changes are.
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The basic tack we took was "if the power is not being taken by the players, replace it with something that is." So, a number of formerly heroside only powers are now available on villainside, and a number of powers have been replaced by something we feel will be more useful in general.
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Wait.
Are you saying powers are being REMOVED from APPs/PPPs? D:
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I wonder if this will be the end of Power Build Up? I believe Castle has mentioned in the past that he didn't like the way that power impacted balancing a lot of others.
<Shoots PBU with a DOOOM Arrow just in case>
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Noone knows how many options we will have as far as powers for created enemy NPCs. If we can select powers to build NPCs that would be great, but I suspect it will be more like we choose existing NPCs and just reskin/rename them. That's fine with me, but I do have a suggestion.
[b][i][color=orange]Don't just make AVs/Heroes reskinnable. Make all enemy NPCs from minions on up reskinnable. If possible, even make the pedestrians walking around customizable.
My main suggestion is to allow us to pick and choose minions, Leuitenants, and bosses from different enemy factions, reskin and rename them, and put them together to form our own player created enemy factions. These player created factions can be listed just like the player created missions to be rated and even used by other players. Player created factions that earn the Devs Choice or Hall of Fame could even find there way into radio/paper missions.
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Since we will have only a few slots to make missions I am sure the player will take their time on each mission. That means some unique stories, new NPCs and something a bit twisted, I am sure! I hope we can mix in what we create with the existing NPCs and so on. The MA sounds like it will be VERY cool!
Unfortuantely I think the tile sets will be the same old LOL