Questioning the MMO Trinity?

Now THAT I like. Multiple tankers on a team should be able to pool their efforts, not compete with other tankers. Though AoE is still a problem for squishies.

...which is a very old suggestion for Tankers that Castle swiped and used for Shield Defense with Grant Defense. In other words, it's an unlikely suggestion now.


Proof?

Seriously, I can produce numerous instances of tanker-type super heroes in comics doing all kinds of damage. When I say that comic tanks do a lot of damage, there's not that many who doubt it because it's generally accepted.

But it's ludicrous to suggest that "squishy" super heroes frequently stand the shade of their tanker teammates for protection. That's not how comic book fights, or real dust ups for that matter, work. Occasionally a comic tank will make a show of blocking a blast for a teammate who didn't see it coming, but that is NOT what they spend the entire fight doing.

Please do not try to use comics to justify the illogical, oversimplified and outdated MMO model of combat or even suggest that is how comic battles go. You do not have one tough hero standing in the middle of a crowd of enemies, goading them to attack him while his teammates casually pick them off from a distance. That is an artificial construct of MMOs that has little or no bearing on actual comic fights. Any instance you could find in a super hero comic or animation that looks exactly like that would be the exception, not the rule.

I'm sorry if you think this is a harsh response, but Tankers do not need people trying to use comics as justifcation to forcibly marginalize them further into a support role as a decoy/punching bag with mediocre offense. That would not help them reflect their comic counterparts any better.


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I am not doing anything of the sort. I was just making an observation; feel free to not have observed the same thing.

However, since you brought up the Taunt mechanic: I have always felt that in THIS game, it was as close as they felt they could get to simulating a Tanker character jumping in front of blows meant for his comrades without having the game engine move your character around the field for you. It's basically the same thing as programming the AI to prefer to shoot at the Tanker (which they also sort of did; Tanker attacks generate more aggro than that of most characters).

Sure, comic book tanks don't do that sort of thing all the time. But they aren't controlled by player characters, either. If a PC wants to spam taunt, I'm not going to say him nay.

I agree with you that many things about how the game engine works are illogical, oversimplified, and outdated. I think the devs know that, too and are moving forward with the speed of programming to correct it.

Actually, I agree with a lot of your expressed feelings about the game, but in many cases, you seem to undermine your message with how you say them. Although you've been better lately.

Actually Superman's AT has a number of members.

Hyperion, Sentry, and Gladiator from Marvel fit in that category. They all have strangely rare weaknesses and are otherwise unstoppable.

Hyperion is almost a direct Superman ripoff, he has all the same abilities, and is weakened by exposure to argonite.

Sentry is arguably as powerful as Superman, but has a laundry list of fears, phobias, and mental conditions.

Gladiator can do anything, as long as he is confident in his ability to do it.

On the DC side, Darkseid and Doomsday are both Superman AT.

In game terms we would call them "stupidly overpowered God-mode characters"

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Actually the only requirement I have is that last one: that most of the players are competent. Otherwise I don't even pay attention to team composition. It really doesn't matter as long as *most* of the team knows what they're doing and the others aren't SO bad that they get everyone else killed. If you have a couple of noobs, that's fine, the rest of the team can cover for them. But really it doesn't matter much beyond that.

Originally Posted by eltonio This is over the top mental slavery.

This. Which is why when I see a team insisting on one of the trinity roles, I figure they've not played much CoH. Some of the most fun I've had in the game was playing on an all-<archetype> team.

--NT

Completely agree here...tho I do find it odd that JB has no problem using comics as examples of how he feels things in this game should be. It's been said before....this game's in a superhero setting, but it's not a comic book simulation. They had to make various concessions/adjustments/what have you in order to make a game that would work, get people to keep playing and sustain their business.

People have demonstrated repeatedly with many suggestions that there are things the devs could have done and CAN STILL DO to fix the problem.

The "concession" in question didn't have to be made and doesn't have to go unaddressed.

It is purely the devs' whim that holds Tankers back. Shafting Tankers and continuing to ignore the same damn complaints about them for four years wasn't done for the good of the game, that's for damn sure. Solutions exist. There are better alternatives. The devs have refused to pursue them, at least up until this point.


That might be a fair comment in this case if the devs had attempted to compromise. They didn't. They decided to force comic tanks to fit into the MMO mold and discard important and expected traits/characteristics just because they felt an AT was needed to be a dedicated tank at the expence of everything else.

That's not called making a compromise or a concession. That's allowing one ideal to fully supplant another and ignoring anyone who complained after their half-hearted attempt at a quick fix didn't fix the problem.


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of course what Johnny wont mention is that 99% of these solutions are

1: his, not the ideas of any forum
2: would make scrappers irrelevant.

It's pretty de rigeur for superhero universes to have at least one Superman-like character. Majestic, Apollo, Supreme from Wildstorm and Image, for example. Champions and Mutants & Masterminds have homage characters who died in 1992 or 1993, roughly when Doomsday killed Superman. DC actually has multiple characters - Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, Sodam Yat, Mon-El - that fit into this category. I don't think Doomsday or Darkseid do, though. Superman's simply a paragon among superheroes. Darkseid is an evil god, and Doomsday is a genocide machine.

Exaggerate much? Just taking a quick look at the Tanker board and I see at least 6 active threads about ways to change tankers. J_B certainly posted in these threads, but didn't start them:

Gauntlet 2.0 by Starsman
Let Tankers be Tankers by Kruunch
So How about this then by EmporerSteele
A long and excessively complicated tanker fix by SpittingTrashcan
How many new players have to complain by Kruunch
Tackling tanker stacking and end efficiency by Sarrate

No one - not even J_B is suggesting that tankers should do more damage than scrappers. As long as scrappers do more damage, they will be relevant. (Personally, I think Brutes have a better chance of rendering scrappers irrelevant than tankers.)

Incorrect.

-I have suggested near Scrapper-level hits but only for breif periods. Such suggstions only raised Tanker average damage slightly and put it nowhere near a Scrapper's average damage output with or without Criticals.

-I have suggested near-Scrapper damage(sans Criticals), but only against Boss cons and up. I have also suggested this, but with addional restrictions on when it can be used.

I have never said Tanker damage output should be highter than a Scrapper's as a suggestion or solution for Tankers today.


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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.

Champions DOES do it, apparently. Not only do you get 4 stances, but 3 builds.

Well there you go.

I hate the fact that I can't make quote pyramids as easily!

Aside from the lack of matching set themes between ATs, why WOULD it be too late to do something like that? Think of it in terms of the classic multi-class option from the old games, only without any of the penalties. What do I mean? Let's call it Dual AT. Everyone should have them!

Let's take something that has analogues everywhere - Fire. At creation, you pick not just one, but two ATs, let's say a primary and a secondary AT. The only difference between them is which one you start as in Outbreak/Breakout. After that point, you can switch your ATs the same way you switch builds. Maybe even in real time as Kheldians switch forms.

Back to Fire. For the sake of killing stuff, you opted to be a Fiery Melee/Fiery Aura Scrapper. You have largely damage and self-protection, perfect for when you're by yourself or when you don't have to worry about other people. You just go out and burn stuff. However, you also picked a Fire Control/Thermal Radiation Controller. That's largely control and support, perfect for when you want to be helpful on a team that has other people shooting up the place.

Oh, but what if you didn't pick Fire/Fire? What if you picked Fire/Ice? For the sake of argument, let's say Ice Armour were ported over to Scrappers and you made a Fiery Melee/Ice Armour Scrapper. What would your controller mode be? Well a Fire Control/Ice Domination Controller, keeping to the old ATs. Same setup - Scrapper for solo or offensive teaming, Controller for supportive teaming or masochistic soloing.

Obviously, there are a LOT of problems with this, but I don't believe balance and technology are the biggest ones. On the contrary, I believe corresponding sets, or rather the lack thereof and extrapolated need to make a matching set for everything would be a far greater challenge. I don't want to see a Rad/Rad Defender turn into a Katana/SR Scrapper, but what does Katana correspond to, anyway? Archery? Devices?

There's certainly room to multi-class, it's just a question of what should be allowed and what new powersets need to be made to account for that. Elements are easy. It's weapons that aren't as straight-forward.

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.

How about dividing things up into "Range, Melee, Damage, and Support" Every AT falls into one of those.

One or more of these, actually. Corrupters skirt the line between Ranged Damage and support while Dominators skirt the line between Damage and Control, with no clear distinction as to whether they are Ranged or Melee. Even something as simple as a Scrapper can skirt the line between Damage and Support with enough aggro control tools (a Taunt Aura and the AoE Pool Taunt, or thereabout). As this very thread has shown, ATs here don't really have a clear designation as to what they are supposed to do or be, so I don't believe inventing a clear distinction five years into the game is a good idea.

To my eyes, we should let players pick their own Dual ATs just the same way as they pick their own Dual Builds, rather than having them be mandatory PvE and PvE and nothing else. This allows people who want to have both a team and a solo AT to have those, and it also allows people to pick two team ATs, two Solo ATs or any esoteric combination that suits their tastes. For me, if I were allowed to pick from any two ATs in the game, I'd likely Dual my Energy/Energy Blaster into an Energy/Energy Brute for special occasions without a second thought.

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.

The square root of a number squared equals the same number and the capital of France is Paris.

So?

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.

Neat.

Amen to that.
I have to say, my lvl 50 Inv/EM tanker, my first character and 50 and an old warhorse, hasnt been out to pasture for a long, long, long time.

Why? He feels inadequate compared to other ATs. Solo? Sure, if you fancy minimum difficulty and taking it real slow. Teamed? These days everyone can do everything better than you.

Tankers aren't the worst offenders (Kheldians are) when it comes to poor inherents. But I really think that could do with an overhaul.

Still, theres a lot of things I'd love to do to the game, but hey, they don't pay me, so I can't =P

Oh and, seriously? It's still a game. Lighten the hell up people, sheesh.


Humans...

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.