Questioning the MMO Trinity?

That's because Khelds are chained to the 'ideal team' setup more than any other AT in the game. To reach anything like their full potential, they MUST have as much AT variety on their team as possible. They get nothing from being around other Khelds.

Replace their inherent, and I think Kheldian performance and popularity would improve in a dramatic fashion.

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That's because Khelds are chained to the 'ideal team' setup more than any other AT in the game. To reach anything like their full potential, they MUST have as much AT variety on their team as possible. They get nothing from being around other Khelds.

Replace their inherent, and I think Kheldian performance and popularity would improve in a dramatic fashion.

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Fixed recently - they get Recharge Reduction now.

Now how about addressing my concerns, Johnny?

-Rachel-

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Champions online is open Archtype.

As was SWG before they destroyed it by closing the classes

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And even then both of those systems are/were NOT 100% open.

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And, given the combat system, SWG's "professions" were nearly impossible to balance in any meaningful way. My Teras Kasi Master/Fencer build could fight and kill anything in the game with little danger. With my disability, that is saying something.

That is the problem with skill-based systems. Either you hard cap certain attributes, which pushes the game toward a class or class-like structure, or players will gravitate toward overloading the most optimal skills, which trivializes play.

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That's because Khelds are chained to the 'ideal team' setup more than any other AT in the game. To reach anything like their full potential, they MUST have as much AT variety on their team as possible. They get nothing from being around other Khelds.

Replace their inherent, and I think Kheldian performance and popularity would improve in a dramatic fashion.

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Fixed recently - they get Recharge Reduction now.

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Actually, they get 10% recharge resistance (makes rech debuffs less painful) not a recharge reduction (makes powers cycle faster). Better than nothing, but nowhere near as good as what they get from some other ATs imo.

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That's because Khelds are chained to the 'ideal team' setup more than any other AT in the game. To reach anything like their full potential, they MUST have as much AT variety on their team as possible. They get nothing from being around other Khelds.

Replace their inherent, and I think Kheldian performance and popularity would improve in a dramatic fashion.

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Fixed recently - they get Recharge Reduction now.

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Actually, they get 10% recharge resistance (makes rech debuffs less painful) not a recharge reduction (makes powers cycle faster). Better than nothing, but nowhere near as good as what they get from some other ATs imo.

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Ah! Faux pas on my part, then.

I never get a chance to test it out, I so rarely ever team with other Khelds (on those rare occasions I play mine).

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Now how about addressing my concerns, Johnny?

-Rachel-

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How about you being a little more polite and a little less insulting?


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Now how about addressing my concerns, Johnny?

-Rachel-

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How about being a little more polite and a little less insulting.


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Somehow, while I feel I should be surprised at this statement, I'm really not.

Ohhhh... More polite. So... Golf Clapping? Discussing the absurdity of decisions and telling people that making sound business decisions based on previous titles would be more or less polite than what I said?

I'd still like my answers, Mr. Butane. Or at least responses to the points I've made.

-Rachel-

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I'd still like my answers, Mr. Butane.

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And I'd still like developers who don't force outdated MMO conventions into a genre they don't belong.

It doesn't look like we'll be getting either here.



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I'd still like my answers, Mr. Butane.

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And I'd still like developers who don't force outdated MMO conventions into a genre they don't belong.

It doesn't look like we'll be getting either here.



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Ladies and gentlemen, classic hypocritcal Johnny_Butane.

Don't forget to tip your waitress!

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The difference between the ranger and the fighter are moreso in that the ranger is the more dangerous and maneuverable fighter, and the enemy is intended to know this, but the fighter's purpose is to specifically act as the equalizer saying, "You can either attack me even though I pose a lesser but harder to hurt threat and let the ranger do his higher damage thing or you can attack the ranger and give me the opportunity to hurt you in new and interesting ways that will make you regret hurting my friend". The concept is that, while the fighter is harder to hit and will deal less damage than the ranger in a vacuum, making the ranger the much favored target not only because he's easier to hit, more dangerous, and squishier, the fighter's presence serves to make that normally obvious choice less obvious by making the obvious choice riskier.

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Precisely. A ranger is dangerous at range, always much more dangerous than a fighter is in melee. Generally speaking, ranged fire you mostly want to avoid, where as melee attacks you can parry, so a ranger at range would be much more dangerous than a fighter in melee... When you are actually FIGHTING the fighter. If you turn your back on the fighter, you suffer. Really, really suffer.

This then puts the question in a much more meaningful, less cheesy context. "Do I want to fight that guy who isn't hurting me much, but whom I also can't hurt all that badly, or do I want to risk letting him MURDER me for the chance to MURDER his helpers and so it's just me and him. Because if it's just me and him, I win." As I said, taunt mechanics emulate that, but do so by compulsion, rather than by choice, and, more troublesomely, do so without the need for a fighter to pose a credible threat. This is the backdoor developers use to make all tanks in the history of tanking gimps when it comes to damage. Because the "threat" they pose is generated via artificial taints, rather than by... Well, letting them pose a threat. Hence the term "taunt bot."

As a very design, I HATE the Tanker concept. It is incredibly stupid to expect a character with little offence but much defence to provide any sort of protection to his team-mates, short of them crouching behind him or him standing in a narrow doorway. In a stand-up fight such as what you will see in a comic book, the "tank" isn't standing between himself and his team-mates, taking punches on the face, he is actively fighting because the only way the bad guys can get past him is if they can pin him down. If he is not pinned down, then woe betide anyone who is not actively fighting the big strong tank.

There's a reason that in fiction and in games (when enemies are concerned) the "tanks" are the ones both dealing the damage and surviving the damage. That forces players to choose if they want to suffer the "tank's" attacks long enough to kill his support troops, or if they want to suffer his support troops' damage long enough to kill him. Believe it or not, taunting players isn't as simple as taunting the AI, even when an actual taunt mechanic forces a player's target.

As for making a fighter stronger than a ranger, this was specifically for a game system which relies on direct combat skill to determine victory. A game where running, jumping, dodging and even aiming is done manually, not as a random roll of the dice. It takes a certain amount of player skill dependence, but with the right system, range CAN be made a meaningful asset and, at the same time, not an overpowered one.

Simply think of something like Star Control, where some ships were faster than others and some had longer range weapons, even homing missiles. There were always ways to catch up to a fleeing enemy and there were always ways to evade a pursuing enemy, regardless of your ship size. The more direct, real-time control a player has over character and pace of battle, the less the system has to emulate and the more the players can be allowed to simply act out.

Sometimes I think MMOs should learn a little more from arcades and single-player games and a little less from EverQuest and Diablo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

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As a very design, I HATE the Tanker concept.


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Mind if I take a snapshot of that?

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It is incredibly stupid to expect a character with little offence but much defence to provide any sort of protection to his team-mates, short of them crouching behind him or him standing in a narrow doorway. In a stand-up fight such as what you will see in a comic book, the "tank" isn't standing between himself and his team-mates, taking punches on the face, he is actively fighting because the only way the bad guys can get past him is if they can pin him down. If he is not pinned down, then woe betide anyone who is not actively fighting the big strong tank.

There's a reason that in fiction and in games (when enemies are concerned) the "tanks" are the ones both dealing the damage and surviving the damage.

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Except here, where the true heroic "tanks" are the weakest melee damage of all the melee classes and are even surpassed by the melee damage of a couple ranged ATs. This is, paradoxically so if we look at your assertion, the price they pay for doing their job for teams.



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This entire post is a series of logical fallacies.

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Thanks for the warning.


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Tankers are not all about damage dealing. They're all about taking hits constantly. Just because you happen to think "Superman" when you think of a Tanker doesn't make him a tank. Superman is a Super-strength Scrapper with SR, Invulnerability, Fly, Superspeed, Superjump, The Body Mastery Epic Pool, and a buttload of useless pool-powers (Super Ventriloquism, anyone?)

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I can agree that Tankers are not all about damage but Superman as a Scrapper? Not hardly.

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To expect a game to let you create and play the "Perfect" character is silly. You'd get bored within the hour and give up on the game. This is why every "Superman" game that's ever been released has sucked. They try to avoid "God Mode" but with superman there really isn't another mode.

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And yet CoH, Champions Online, and a few other MMO's out there sure let you try to play the perfect character. CoH has made leaps and bounds towards that goal.

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You've spent two and a half years trying to force your philosophy on others.

Please, by all means, enlighten me as to a method to ensure all archetypes are well-played if a single archetype has as much or more damage than a scrapper and all the survivability of a tanker. How much of a buff would you have to give the other archetypes AND the villains to keep the game both fair and challenging? You can't? How shocking!

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Brute defined. Next question.


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As for the Villains not teaming well, or being a "Break" from the trinity? You're just being silly, now.

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Since the only relic in this game that even hints at the holy trinity is the acctual tanker class Villain side pretty effectivly destroys the holy trinity.

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Villains aren't team-oriented, generally speaking. those who -do- work on teams together have obvious and exploitable weak-points so that a hero or team of heroes can defeat them. However in a one-on-one fight a villain should have an almost equal chance of success against a hero.

[/ QUOTE ] Are you referencing PvP? Classes are most certainly not balanced against each other in PvP 1 on 1 fights.

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Scrapper versus stalker. If the stalker doesn't flee after the AS then the match -should- be fairly even. The scrapper took a LOT of damage, but their overall damage output -is- comparable (especially with placate and a second assassin strike) And the Stalker has only slightly weaker defenses than the Scrapper. Functionally they fill the same role (Melee burst damage and possible off-tank)

Brutes and Tanks follow a similar axiom. Tankers have better defenses and more hit-points with, initially, a similar damage output. So in the beginning of a tank/brute standoff the tank would be winning. As the fight progressed, however, the brute's fury would come into play more, balancing the fight out again.

You can do this with -every- class, excepts Dominators. (Corruptor/Defender, Blaster/Mastermind) Dominators and Controllers have a Binary system of "I Win" in their ability to hold their foe. Which makes it a "Who strikes first" victory.

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Try Scrapper vs Brute. Stalker is not the scrapper equivilent. A Blaster is a stalker equivilent. Controlers vs Domiantors. Defenders vs Corruptors. Tanks match up to Masterminds only by process of elimination and Elimination is the only end a Tank will meet at the hands of a mastermind while playing solo. or at most a stalemate.

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And finally, your assertation that "Open" archetypes will be the ultimate saving grace of MMOs.

Having worked on the core systems of an MMO, myself, it's difficult to balance enemies versus each of the archetypes to make the fights challenging without being one-sided in either direction. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to try and develop challenging (but not one-sided) encounters in a system wherein the most important variables (The player character's abilities) are unknowable?

How do you balance X versus N when you've no idea what X -or- N are? You don't. You make N a random number or an educated guess and you hope for the best.

Class systems are a strong way to balance and define abilities. Avoiding the Holy Trinity has nothing to do with getting rid of classes. And you're just deluding yourself if you think it will.

-Rachel-

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Classes are a way of pigeonholing your players into a specific style of play. They can also guide a player into what you, the programmer, expect him to do. It is far from teh only way to do things and it isn't the best way to do things. Closed archtypes is a developers way of putting training wheels on games anymore.

City of Heroes, unwittingly, broke that mold. We had the attempt in CoH. WE had the welcome acceptance of a new system with Villains. This is why the Tank is a relic. Largely forgotten and unneeded. Its nice to have one from time to time but When given the opportunity to have any other AT you pick those other AT's.

Tanks in this game need help. I don't think Upping their damage to ungodly levels is the answer. I don't really subscribe to Johnny Butanes fixes per se but I do agree with his philosophy that Tanks in this game need help.

the Holy trinity is an old concept. City of Heroes is the first MMO I've seen that has departed from it. This desire to cling to old concepts is...sad.

I look forward to seeing your steampunk themed MMO but if it contains rigid classes...I'll never play a game like that again. Any game that REQUIRES me to have a specific class to run anything is a game I have no interest in running. Every class should be able to fill most functions both solo and on a team. When it comes to a Tank they are just a one trick pony.

Johnny Butane vs Rachel?

This is like I died and went to slap-fight heaven!

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Please, by all means, enlighten me as to a method to ensure all archetypes are well-played if a single archetype has as much or more damage than a scrapper and all the survivability of a tanker. How much of a buff would you have to give the other archetypes AND the villains to keep the game both fair and challenging? You can't? How shocking!

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Brute defined. Next question.

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Are you grossly ignorant of the survivability differences between tankers and brutes, or do you just want people to think you are?

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As a very design, I HATE the Tanker concept.


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Mind if I take a snapshot of that?

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It is incredibly stupid to expect a character with little offence but much defence to provide any sort of protection to his team-mates, short of them crouching behind him or him standing in a narrow doorway. In a stand-up fight such as what you will see in a comic book, the "tank" isn't standing between himself and his team-mates, taking punches on the face, he is actively fighting because the only way the bad guys can get past him is if they can pin him down. If he is not pinned down, then woe betide anyone who is not actively fighting the big strong tank.

There's a reason that in fiction and in games (when enemies are concerned) the "tanks" are the ones both dealing the damage and surviving the damage.

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Except here, where the true heroic "tanks" are the weakest melee damage of all the melee classes and are even surpassed by the melee damage of a couple ranged ATs. This is, paradoxically so if we look at your assertion, the price they pay for doing their job for teams.

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I think of the Thing when I think of the Tank AT. He isn't really goldy strong like Superman but he was relentless. Especialyl when his teammates were in danger. I think If they had a system like Vigilence for tanks it would help. Instead of end reduction though have the tank gain damage strength as his team takes damage. pair that with the brute version of gauntlet.

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Please, by all means, enlighten me as to a method to ensure all archetypes are well-played if a single archetype has as much or more damage than a scrapper and all the survivability of a tanker. How much of a buff would you have to give the other archetypes AND the villains to keep the game both fair and challenging? You can't? How shocking!

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Brute defined. Next question.

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Are you grossly ignorant of the survivability differences between tankers and brutes, or do you just want people to think you are?

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My Bad. I know Brutes are more survivable than tanks. They both have the same caps but thee Brute can kill things alot quicker and easier which is the ultimate form of mitigation.

Brute =Unstoppable force
Tank = Immovable object.

I know which of those two sounds more fun.

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I think If they had a system like Vigilence for tanks it would help. Instead of end reduction though have the tank gain damage strength as his team takes damage.

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I thought the whole idea of 'the tank' was to hold aggro and keep their teammates from eating damage?

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I think If they had a system like Vigilence for tanks it would help. Instead of end reduction though have the tank gain damage strength as his team takes damage.

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I thought the whole idea of 'the tank' was to hold aggro and keep their teammates from eating damage?

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I thought that was the point of a defender as well. The reasoning behind it appears to be that when the team needs them the most they can step up. In my hypothetical suggestion for tanks. They would be able to step up and do more damage in order to help expedite delivery of the best mitigation type of all.

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I thought that was the point of a defender as well.

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and thus we come to the underlying thematic dissonance of the mechanic and why a lot of folk don't like it.

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Are you grossly ignorant of the survivability differences between tankers and brutes, or do you just want people to think you are?

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The survivability difference between Tankers and Brutes or between Tankers and Scrappers derived just from their defensive sets is not insignificant.

However, that is not the totality of survivability a melee character has. There's lot of mitigation loaded into the melee offensive sets. The mitigation value from powers like KO Blow, Air Superioritry and Foot Stomp is astounding and a Brute gets the same amount of it from them as a Tanker does. Not to mention powers like Invoke Panic. Then factor in that with more damage, often they have to face enemies for a shorter amount of time, meaning the enemies don't get a chance to expend as much damage or stack as many debuffs.

Yes, there is a gap between Tanker and Brute(or Scrapper) defensive sets, but with so much survivability coming from other sources, their actual compared survivability is much closer than that gap would suggest. That actual gap, in my opinion, is much smaller than the damage gap between Tankers and Scrappers or Brutes, and that seems unfair to me.


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I thought that was the point of a defender as well.

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and thus we come to the underlying thematic dissonance of the mechanic and why a lot of folk don't like it.

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The problem with it on Defenders is it doesn't help in most cases. Yeah its nice to have an endurance break. UI dont know any defenders who has end problems regardless plus some sets are more proactive than reactive. In my hypothetical change for tanks +dam is always useful. plus it helps deliver the best mitigation of all in a defeated opponent.

It is thematic for a tank to get royally pissed when people he wants to protect comes under attack.

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Are you grossly ignorant of the survivability differences between tankers and brutes, or do you just want people to think you are?

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The survivability difference between Tankers and Brutes or between Tankers and Scrappers derived just from their defensive sets is not insignificant.

However, that is not the totality of survivability a melee character has. There's lot of mitigation loaded into the melee offensive sets. The mitigation value from powers like KO Blow, Air Superioritry and Foot Stomp is astounding and a Brute gets the same amount of it from them as a Tanker does. Not to mention powers like Invoke Panic. Then factor in that with more damage, often they have to face enemies for a shorter amount of time, meaning the enemies don't get a chance to expend as much damage or stack as many debuffs.

Yes, there is a gap between Tanker and Brute(or Scrapper) defensive sets, but with so much survivability coming from other sources, their actual compared survivability is much closer than that gap would suggest. That actual gap, in my opinion, is much smaller than the damage gap between Tankers and Scrappers or Brutes, and that seems unfair to me.


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Meanwhile a tanker doesn't have to take invoke panic, air superiority, and other pool powers to maintain the same survivability as a brute that does take them. Instead of spending time and endurance activating those powers, he can instead swing and hit his enemies, mitigating some of the damage cap difference between tankers and Brutes...

Assuming of course the brute has his fury at full it's a, what, 100% damage bonus? Or is it at 120 or somesuch?

Meanwhile a Brute's base damage is lower than a tankers. And his base defenses are lower as well.

It's only through fury, outside buffs, and pool powers that a brute becomes as sturdy as a tanker. Otherwise he's just trying, desperately, to hit things hard enough to put them down before he is put down.

-Rachel-

200% and No brute is desperately trying to stay alive. You are referencing a Blaster. For solo play a Brute's defence is much like a Scrappers. Any Scrapers here have issues staying alive while solo?

In group play they will start seeing buffs which gives them tanker values. Any tankers here have trouble staying alive in groups? Any brutes in here have trouble building fury in groups when you are the primary target?