The new ranged attacks
By
AgentMountaineer,
Posted on: 2009-05-06 16:28 in The Global Training Room Test Server
Hopefully this is one of the "quality of life changes" that are upcomming though I am an optimist.
The problem lies in trust.
See, with a lot of melee-focused characters, there are ranged or support guys to keep them balanced.
Where things get screwy is when players design arcs with some glaring, easily used weakness, whether it's 'low defense' or 'melee-only.'
Goes back to motive.
If your motive is to give designers options to avoid making crippled custom enemies? Make a reasonable ranged attack damage.
But the motive is 'stop farming,' so it's 'reduce the ability to give custom enemies weaknesses.'
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yet for a tanker; brute or scrapper it is a non issue
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-facepalm-
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Figures we'd see a silly post like the one you guys facepalmed to.
shows that some people STILL haven't figured out that you SHOULD be testing your arcs properly. And no, testing with just a tanker brute or scrapper is NOT proper testing.
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Sigh.
THIS and the changes to maps are one of the reason's why I don't like how fast patches on TEST jump to LIVE now.
Back in the old days there was more time for folks to actually TEST patches on TEST.
It would also give the patch writers time to note what's changed accurately. (Referring; Lack of notation of maps being removed in these patch notes.)
Again, sigh.
Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!
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If your motive is to give designers options to avoid making crippled custom enemies? Make a reasonable ranged attack damage. But the motive is 'stop farming,' so it's 'reduce the ability to give custom enemies weaknesses.'
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All we're talking about is bringing ranged attacks for melee custom mobs in line with ranged attacks for melee normal mobs. That would make the risk of farming no higher than it is for the melee normal mobs.
Except normal mobs are often in designed mixed groups with ranged mobs and melee mobs.
Whereas we could set up a custom group with only melee mobs.
So, with a few exceptions, the risk is higher. (I think Warriors lack any strong ranged guys?)
I'm talking about in MA missions.
I can, for instance, create a mission full of nothing but Button Man Muscle mobs, if I want to.
At the moment, I'm at a loss for how to create a missions that use custom melee mobs that do not absolutely destroy blasters.
It really makes no sense if the "motive" is too "stop" farming because this does "nothing" to "stop" farming. What it does stop is people from being able to make balanced content especially at low levels as has been noted.
I don't think anyone other than hover farmers care that the critters have a ranged attack. I think everyone cares that said attack is WAY outta balance and presents some serious problems with making balanced mission.
Frankly, its an absurd hyperreaction to hover farming IMHO.
I mean it is time to interject some truth into the discussion. Is there any doubt that the custom critters using the players damage scale are already tougher than the standard PvE critters? Yet they give the same rewards eventhough the risk is indeed higher.
Where is the "trust" there? Players trust the devs to make things balanced in terms of risk vs reward yet they are not and NOBODY including myself is asking for them to give the "fair" amount of reward for the "increased" risk. People are just thankful not to have to kill their 5 billionth CoT Mage on the way to 50.
A solution would be to make the attack a properly scaled PvE critter attack for the level of the mission just like in PvE. Using the players damage scale for this attack breaks the players trust in the devs to be sensible and balanced in their approach in dealing with these issues.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
I agree with the responses. I'm just outlining what I think is the motivation and general thinking behind the changes. The thinking is inconsistent and misses points like Amberyl made (what, are they going to go through and bump up ranged damage for standard enemies in MA?)
No I thinks its alot eaiser to scale the ranged attack like it is for PvE critters.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
Maybe the ranged attacks are stronger because if you kite a foe, he will only be able to use the ranged attack over and over (waiting for it to recharge) rather than walloping you with a full attack chain at melee?
So, if you are toe to toe with a martial arts foe, will he do more damage with Thunder Kick>Crane Kick>Daragon's Tail> Eagle Claw (or whatever) than with Shuriken ... shuriken ... shuriken?
I ask because I am not sure.
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The new ranged attacks for custom melee sets seem more than a bit overpowered. I'd expect to see them in line with normal ranged attacks on primarily-melee mobs, but these seem to be considerably more vicious.
I was testing one of my missions, which is designed for "soloable by a defender", which means all minions standard/standard. I was more than a little surprised to find that opening with Fire Cages meant that I was almost instantly brought down to red health. This was on Tenacious, all white-con minions (four or five of them, I think).
That seems a bit much -- I have not yet tested on my other toons, but I suspect my defenders will be pwnzed.
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Some counter points:
~ You had it on Tenacious, and sometimes having 5 enemies is worse than 3 +1s. Personally I wouldn't up my difficulty against custom mobs in MA, especially a defender in the teens. Go to Heroic. Going against custom groups on Tenacious in the teens is not a good idea.
~ Many defenders would immediately heal.
~ Don't open up with an AoE on 5 mobs when you are in range of all of them? Snipe the closest one at the edge of your range so their retaliation is staged.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
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So, if you are toe to toe with a martial arts foe, will he do more damage with Thunder Kick>Crane Kick>Daragon's Tail> Eagle Claw (or whatever) than with Shuriken ... shuriken ... shuriken?
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That's an important and interesting question. I haven't gotten a chance to test it yet. The flip side is that there's a risk of Immobilize having been nullified... if repeating their ranged attack consistently gives them *more* damage than cycling through their melee attacks, you've not only made a major class of mitigation worthless, but rendered a level of tactics irrelevant.
In the normal game, if Big Honkin Rikti Sword Lost Guy is coming down the hall at my blaster, I can fire an Immob at him, and take less damage by engaging him at range where he's only got a pistol. If the ranged attack *in practice* is a higher fraction of everyone's damage output, that's a reduction in effectiveness of Immobs. If it's as good or even better than their melee, that's made a major class of powers drastically less relevant.
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I think you're missing the point, which is that I could have waltzed into that mob of 5 white-con minions and taken the hits of 5 attacks from their melee sets without dropping into red health. I could have approached 5 white-con minions with a ranged blast set and taken 5 hits without dropping into red health. Or into a mob of 5 white-con minions of any normal enemy group of the game and taken 5 hits, whether ranged or melee.
My controller is /kin, and I have a six-slotted heal, so in fact, yes, I immediately healed. But what would a blaster do?
More broadly, what would any other ranged toon do? Blasters and defenders and corruptors usually depend upon hitting things from range -- and because the game is balanced with that in mind, ranged attacks are generally weaker than the melee attacks, across all normal (i.e., non-custom, found in regular missions) enemy groups. Self-heals only recharge so quickly, and the new custom melee characters can do a whole lot more ranged damage than you can heal in adequate time. That leaves those ranged toons with the ugly option of charging into melee, where, assuming they're not specifically built to stand in melee (not blappers, scrapfenders, etc.), they will promptly be owned by the melee damage set.
As a controller, I don't have a snipe. Most of my defenders don't have snipes, either. And the snipe is still going to aggro the entire mass -- so now I take nearly my whole health bar over four seconds instead of two, let's say. Not helpful.
I'm asking for something rather reasonable, I think -- for custom mobs to be approximately equivalent to normal enemy groups of the same level. We know that MA mobs are somewhat more powerful, but it's not sensible for them to be overwhelmingly more powerful, especially when their ranged damage exceeds that of their primary, melee powers.
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I'm asking for something rather reasonable, I think -- for custom mobs to be approximately equivalent to normal enemy groups of the same level. We know that MA mobs are somewhat more powerful, but it's not sensible for them to be overwhelmingly more powerful, especially when their ranged damage exceeds that of their primary, melee powers.
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It is getting tougher to be patient with people that are not dealing with this core issue.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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I'm asking for something rather reasonable, I think -- for custom mobs to be approximately equivalent to normal enemy groups of the same level.
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I guess I threw out that assumption long ago. If I go against custom groups I presume they are more effective than most normal groups unless the author is specifically gimping them for a farm. I certainly wouldn't go against custom groups in the teens with *increased* difficulty. I guess my point is I would find the point much more compelling if you were running on Heroic.
Plus, I don't know that 5 sledge hammer melee mobs in the low levels wouldn't put me into the red if they all hit. And I believe getting hit by the melee of 5 Warrior minions would be as bad.
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We know that MA mobs are somewhat more powerful, but it's not sensible for them to be overwhelmingly more powerful, especially when their ranged damage exceeds that of their primary, melee powers.
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I believe the idea is that the ranged powers have a long recharge so they need to hit harder to be non-trivial against fliers. So an individual attack might hit hard, I didn't seem to me like they had higher damage over time.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
Well, I'm testing this on a 50 -- with defense, resists, regen, and extra HP from IO sets.
My defender would simply die, even with 3 white minions rather than 5.
Put another way: Melee mobs should not have ranged attacks that do damage like Nemesis snipers.
Damage over time doesn't matter, here; we're talking about an alpha strike. No other melee mob on the game does ranged damage like this on an alpha.
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I'm asking for something rather reasonable, I think -- for custom mobs to be approximately equivalent to normal enemy groups of the same level.
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I guess I threw out that assumption long ago. If I go against custom groups I presume they are more effective than most normal groups unless the author is specifically gimping them for a farm. I certainly wouldn't go against custom groups in the teens with *increased* difficulty. I guess my point is I would find the point much more compelling if you were running on Heroic.
Plus, I don't know that 5 sledge hammer melee mobs in the low levels wouldn't put me into the red if they all hit. And I believe getting hit by the melee of 5 Warrior minions would be as bad.
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You are still missing his point - it is one thing to be harder than normal mobs, it is another to be impossible to balance for squishy mobs. If the ranged attacks really ARE toing more damage than any single melee attacks no blaster is going to be able to survive unless you are an unreasonable build (ranged def softcap, etc).
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We know that MA mobs are somewhat more powerful, but it's not sensible for them to be overwhelmingly more powerful, especially when their ranged damage exceeds that of their primary, melee powers.
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I believe the idea is that the ranged powers have a long recharge so they need to hit harder to be non-trivial against fliers. So an individual attack might hit hard, I didn't seem to me like they had higher damage over time.
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The problem with this line of reasoning is that damage over time isn't a big deal for enemies that are normally meant to die fairly quickly (i.e. - minions) so it doesn't matter if they have 5 melee attacks that can kill a blaster 3 times over - as long as said blaster can kill them before they get off those 5 melee attacks then the game is reasonablly balanced (which is the point of high damage, squishy archetypes like blasters). However if 3 minions can slaughter a blaster with thier single ranged attack, then there is NO way to balance them and no way for a blaster to handle them.
I am sorry but defending overpowered attacks like this is completely unreasonable. Seriously - I think the developers have not sat down and REALLY worked out the consequences of giving attacks with a PC damage scale to mobs with NPC damage modifiers. Things like the ranged attack overkill and the HUGE effect of aim/buildup powers (which should either be completely removed from custom mobs or scaled WAY down due to the high NPC damage base) are clear signs that someone didn't really do the math.
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Once you can cherry pick custom critter powers, it shouldn't be a problem. Until then, watch out for custom foes.
Story Arcs I created:
Every Rose: (#17702) Villainous vs Legacy Chain. Forget Arachnos, join the CoT!
Cosplay Madness!: (#3643) Neutral vs Custom Foes. Heroes at a pop culture convention!
Kiss Hello Goodbye: (#156389) Heroic vs Custom Foes. Film Noir/Hardboiled detective adventure!
No you wont, you can only add powers to the base difficulty you use, not choose from scratch. You cannot get rid of the ranged attacks.
Squishys need not apply.
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I am highly supportive of giving melee sets a ranged attack, insofar as I recognize that there's a legitimate interest in preventing players from hover-blasting helpless mobs into oblivion.
However, I want those ranged attacks to be comparable to the ranged attacks given to other melee mobs in the game. For that matter, I'm not even sure that the ranged attacks are comparable with the ranged powersets.
Brutes, scrappers, and tanks are going to power through practically anything; I'm frankly not worried about balancing my missions for them. However, story-focused, text-heavy arcs are best seen solo, and I want my arc to be soloable by as many characters as possible. Prior to the change, a mid-teens defender could solo my arc on Heroic, playing normally (i.e., no hover-blasting or the like). That's no longer the case.
And no, I don't want to use the same old enemies that people fight in regular missions. A custom look to the critters, along with custom descriptions, are vital to me.
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Complete and total agreement.
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Once you can cherry pick custom critter powers, it shouldn't be a problem. Until then, watch out for custom foes.
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You won't be able to cherry pick powers. The custom critters will come with a standard set of powers the devs pick and then we can "add" more powers to them. Obviously since the custom critters are already overpowered this change is not helpful to balancing things out the way they need to be.
I don't think this is helpful in any way to MA missions using "customs" as they are just too hard to "balance" when they come out the shoot already way more powerful than the PvE critters and that is not something that is hard to figure out.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
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The new ranged attacks for custom melee sets seem more than a bit overpowered.
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/signed
Lightning Bolt is nearly equivalent to a a Sapper blast it seems. This is pretty painful on a non-controlling character.
I would have to agree with your suggestions on the amount of power for each range. Anything beyond that "REALLY" hurts the ability for story tellers to balacne their arcs.
The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.