In praise of Nerfs!
By
Blind_Minotaur,
Posted on: 2009-01-27 23:21 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Well, firstly, well spotted on the first point.
Secondly, my statement is not false at all, I am arguing for possibility.
Examine again, you can Alter a set so its effect is different but the next effect is zero (maybe even a net buff)
I will use a hypothetical example (Too much resources to do, dont advocate it blah blah blah)
Fire Control gets +25% to its hold and stun durations.
Activating Hot feet makes you immune to +recharge buffs and -recharge debuffs.
Now, how does that effect the combinations:
Anything but /Rad or /Kin:
Woohoo I can hold for 25% longer! I am t3h ub3r!
Wow, im immune to -recharge debuffs. Thats pretty handy!
Hmmm, I cant get sped up anymore. Well, its not too bad, I cant do that to myself anyway
Overall, its hard to argue that this would be anything but an average buff for fire control (heck, Id be pretty pleased with this on my Fire/Storm).
Rad:
As above, with the sorrow that the +recharge from AM would be lost. Overall, Id say toon was about averaged out.
Kin:
[censored]! YOU NERFED MY TOON TO HELL! Em/ TOYS OUT OF PRAM!
Now, im not saying you cant ALTER the effects of sets by "targetted" nerfs or buffs, but you can target the combination (imperfectly). In the above example, One combination is CLEARLY more affected than the others.
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Actually no, it would affect every fire/ controller as they would not gain any benefit from any +recharge buffs from other players. Nice try, but no.
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Ill give a more extreme example of a buff, as my argument applies equally to this, and it will probably upset people less and make them look at the cold logic:
Say you wanted to SPECIFICALLY buff a DM/Energy Stalker:
ENERGY ABSORBTION:
Activating this power also increases the value of your "to hit" debuffs by 200%.
Bear in mind hypothetical, not avocating, it doesnt need to make sense, etc.
This is clearly a targetted buff. It will also effect those taking Soul Mastery epic (on two powers), but are you really suggesting this is not a targetted buff on the combination DM/Energy?
[/ QUOTE ]Yes I agree this would be specific.
You notice the one significant difference though?
One example has a detrimental effect (scale is irrelevent) that impacts on every combination of the power set. The other does not. Any other stalker can take EA and see no difference in how their toon plays. All Fire/ controllers get bitten by the +recharge nerf.
No matter how much you try to buff as a counter balance, you cannot nerf specifically, it's not a precision instrument.
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Aren't most Recharge Buffs non-resistable anyway? And designed that way precisely so that sets such as SR which have inherent recharge resistance don't only get 50% instead of 70% from Hasten?
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Doesn't matter if you're Super Reflex or not, you still get 70% from hasten.
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The only time this would affect a Fire/ who is not /Kin is if that Fire/ was TEAMED with a /Kin.
[/ QUOTE ]And that's ok for all those non-Kin Fire/ Controllers is it?
Remember that not everyone solos their way through this game.
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Aren't most Recharge Buffs non-resistable anyway? And designed that way precisely so that sets such as SR which have inherent recharge resistance don't only get 50% instead of 70% from Hasten?
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Doesn't matter if you're Super Reflex or not, you still get 70% from hasten.
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I think that's what he was saying.
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One thing about this argument that hasn't been brought up yet. We don't know how this would effect powers for other ATs. Quite often when a power is reduced somehow the subsequent power in other sets will be reduced by the same percentages. Now I don't know how much control the devs have over this as there have been powers that have been made nearly redundant for some ATs whilst they became balanced for others and vice versa. That could have been the devs doing or they could have been linked in some way.
Don't forget, when you mess around with controller primaries, for example, you might also make changes to defender secondaries.
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Aren't most Recharge Buffs non-resistable anyway? And designed that way precisely so that sets such as SR which have inherent recharge resistance don't only get 50% instead of 70% from Hasten?
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Doesn't matter if you're Super Reflex or not, you still get 70% from hasten.
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Aye, that was my point- the "Recharge buff/debuff immunity" idea wouldn't work.
It's impossible to actually prevent Hasten (and virtually all other recharge buffs) from giving you all of its allocated recharge buff, because it's flagged as a "non-resistable" buff.
The only thing you could do to prevent a toon from getting any benefit from Hasten would be to massively debuff their recharge so that they were at least -70% below the lowermost recharge cap.
Ah i misunderstood then, thought he meant that super reflex only got 50% from hasten because they already get 20% from QR.
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One thing about this argument that hasn't been brought up yet. We don't know how this would effect powers for other ATs. Quite often when a power is reduced somehow the subsequent power in other sets will be reduced by the same percentages. Now I don't know how much control the devs have over this as there have been powers that have been made nearly redundant for some ATs whilst they became balanced for others and vice versa. That could have been the devs doing or they could have been linked in some way.
Don't forget, when you mess around with controller primaries, for example, you might also make changes to defender secondaries.
[/ QUOTE ]I think, for the most part, this isn't the case. I was under the impression (and I may be wrong) that the sets available to one AT were independent of those available to another. Tweaking Stalker EA to give a +200% buff to -ToHit effects would not carry over to Brutes.
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The only time this would affect a Fire/ who is not /Kin is if that Fire/ was TEAMED with a /Kin.
[/ QUOTE ]And that's ok for all those non-Kin Fire/ Controllers is it?
Remember that not everyone solos their way through this game.
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Yes, yes it is.
Because when a Fire/FF troller is teamed with an Ice/Kin, it becomes exactly the same situation as a Fire/Kin teamed with an Ice/FF.
The problem is that the combination of Kin and Fire is overpowered. If it's overpowered on one toon, it's also overpowered on a duo (and if it's overpowered farmer FOTMs you want to cut down on, duos are not uncommon). However if you targetted the power combination itself (unlike other methods which nerf either Fire/ or /Kin) there would be absolutely nothing to prevent the Fire's Hotfeet from being buffed by other means than Fulcrum Shift - Fortitude, Assault, AM... even Siphon Power.
Another option is that it might well be possible to set up the flag so that it only triggers when the caster of the Fulcrum Shift buff is the same as the caster of Hotfeet (or other factors such as teamsize = 1, etc)... but I imagine that directly copying the code for Targetting Drone/Sniper Rifle would be the simplest fix.
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Aren't most Recharge Buffs non-resistable anyway? And designed that way precisely so that sets such as SR which have inherent recharge resistance don't only get 50% instead of 70% from Hasten?
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Doesn't matter if you're Super Reflex or not, you still get 70% from hasten.
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Aye, that was my point- the "Recharge buff/debuff immunity" idea wouldn't work.
It's impossible to actually prevent Hasten (and virtually all other recharge buffs) from giving you all of its allocated recharge buff, because it's flagged as a "non-resistable" buff.
The only thing you could do to prevent a toon from getting any benefit from Hasten would be to massively debuff their recharge so that they were at least -70% below the lowermost recharge cap.
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It must be possible in some way, since Strength of Will has been successfully flagged as unaffected by attack rate changes (including recharge buffs). A similar, switchable, flag could be attached to other powers (or whole powersets). So, the toon would receive the buff but the recharge rate of (some arbitrary subset) of their powers would be unaffected.
Of course, being *possible* wouldn't stop it being a fantastically bad idea...
By my 50s shall ye know me:
Tundra, DVM, The Late, Neutrino Ghost, Sir Clanksalot, End Of Days, Prof. Migraine
Howler Monkey
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I think, for the most part, this isn't the case. I was under the impression (and I may be wrong) that the sets available to one AT were independent of those available to another. Tweaking Stalker EA to give a +200% buff to -ToHit effects would not carry over to Brutes.
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My bad.. of course they might still have to reduce a defender secondary so it's not as powerful as a controller primary.
Been reflecting on this thread...
Firstly, an apology. Logically, the ease of the game has absolutey squat to do with the issue at hand. *slaps head*
Mind, out of manure comes good- some people had some good ideas on that subject - worthy of another thread.
Secondly, to sort out the mess, I would like to start another thread "Balancing, whats your veiw?". Unless people have objections. As a survey.
As far as I can see there are the following positions one could have:
A: UNBALANCED IS GOOD. Therefore resources (probably minimal but have your say) should be expended on maintaining inbalance or even (although unlikely but have your say) promoting it.
B. INBALANCE IS IRRELEVANT. Both to myself individually and the overall good of the game. Therefore no resources should be spent on either promoting or removing Inbalance.
C. INBALANCE IS BAD. Therefore, resources (a variable amount from minimal to a lot) should be expended on trying to minimise imbalance [NB: The one thing everybody agrees on is perfection is impossible, so please read carefullly the phrase "minimise".
D: IMBALANCE CANNOT BE ADDRESSED: The average intervention of the current Dev team will cause more imbalance than balance. (Note average, we all accept mistakes will be
made).
Then, there is peoples veiw of how balancing should occur, if it occurs (either with or without their agreement).
If you take position A or B, or even D, this is saying "I'd rather balancing didnt occur, but if you must expend resources on it, this would be the way that I would dislike the least".
1: ONLY EVER BUFF.
2: BUFF AND NERF, BUT BUFF MORE THAN NERF
3: (ATTEMPT TO) BUFF AND NERF EQUALLY
4: BUFF AND NERF, BUT NERF MORE THAN BUFF
5: ONLY EVER NERF (I dont think anyone argued for this, but I put it in for completeness)
Incidentally, logically the effects of [1 and 2] and [4 and 5] are exactly the same.
My position is C3, and I think a low but not insignificant amount of resources needs to be allocated.
Has anyone got any comments on how I have laid out peoples position?
I thought it would be better to start a new thread surveying peoples opinion.
Unfortunately, my logic is pretty good (not infallible), but I seem to have unconsciously used emotive but not insulting explanations (blame my job, but I apologise nevertheless) which detracted from my whole point. Clumsy of me, and Mr M I tip my hat to you.
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Aren't most Recharge Buffs non-resistable anyway? And designed that way precisely so that sets such as SR which have inherent recharge resistance don't only get 50% instead of 70% from Hasten?
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Doesn't matter if you're Super Reflex or not, you still get 70% from hasten.
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Aye, that was my point- the "Recharge buff/debuff immunity" idea wouldn't work.
It's impossible to actually prevent Hasten (and virtually all other recharge buffs) from giving you all of its allocated recharge buff, because it's flagged as a "non-resistable" buff.
The only thing you could do to prevent a toon from getting any benefit from Hasten would be to massively debuff their recharge so that they were at least -70% below the lowermost recharge cap.
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It must be possible in some way, since Strength of Will has been successfully flagged as unaffected by attack rate changes (including recharge buffs). A similar, switchable, flag could be attached to other powers (or whole powersets). So, the toon would receive the buff but the recharge rate of (some arbitrary subset) of their powers would be unaffected.
Of course, being *possible* wouldn't stop it being a fantastically bad idea...
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Agreed with the last point, certainly! 
As far as I'm aware 'Strength of Will' and the other tier 9s are individual powers that have been told to ignore all recharge (buffs/base/enhancements/whatever) rather than powers that grant a certain level of recharge buff/debuff resistance to the user.
I suppose that you could setup entire powersets the same way - all effected powers within that powerset would then be completely unaffected by recharge (enhancement, buffs or debuffs). It wouldn't stop the toon from getting the usual amount of recharge buffs though - they just wouldn't affect those powers. The toon would still get all the benefits of the extra recharge on their other main primary/secondary powerset, along with any pool or inherent powers that were not setup to "ignore recharge".
So a toon would get +70% recharge from Hasten. Powers flagged as "ignore recharge" would act as if they still had 100% (base) recharge. All the other powers would work as normal, gaining benefit from the 170% recharge.
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Been reflecting on this thread...
Firstly, an apology. Logically, the ease of the game has absolutey squat to do with the issue at hand. *slaps head*
Mind, out of manure comes good- some people had some good ideas on that subject - worthy of another thread.
Secondly, to sort out the mess, I would like to start another thread "Balancing, whats your veiw?". Unless people have objections. As a survey.
As far as I can see there are the following positions one could have:
A: UNBALANCED IS GOOD. Therefore resources (probably minimal but have your say) should be expended on maintaining inbalance or even (although unlikely but have your say) promoting it.
B. INBALANCE IS IRRELEVANT. Both to myself individually and the overall good of the game. Therefore no resources should be spent on either promoting or removing Inbalance.
C. INBALANCE IS BAD. Therefore, resources (a variable amount from minimal to a lot) should be expended on trying to minimise imbalance [NB: The one thing everybody agrees on is perfection is impossible, so please read carefullly the phrase "minimise".
D: IMBALANCE CANNOT BE ADDRESSED: The average intervention of the current Dev team will cause more imbalance than balance. (Note average, we all accept mistakes will be
made).
Then, there is peoples veiw of how balancing should occur, if it occurs (either with or without their agreement).
If you take position A or B, or even D, this is saying "I'd rather balancing didnt occur, but if you must expend resources on it, this would be the way that I would dislike the least".
1: ONLY EVER BUFF.
2: BUFF AND NERF, BUT BUFF MORE THAN NERF
3: (ATTEMPT TO) BUFF AND NERF EQUALLY
4: BUFF AND NERF, BUT NERF MORE THAN BUFF
5: ONLY EVER NERF (I dont think anyone argued for this, but I put it in for completeness)
Incidentally, logically the effects of [1 and 2] and [4 and 5] are exactly the same.
My position is C3, and I think a low but not insignificant amount of resources needs to be allocated.
Has anyone got any comments on how I have laid out peoples position?
I thought it would be better to start a new thread surveying peoples opinion.
Unfortunately, my logic is pretty good (not infallible), but I seem to have unconsciously used emotive but not insulting explanations (blame my job, but I apologise nevertheless) which detracted from my whole point. Clumsy of me, and Mr M I tip my hat to you.
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Add another level of difficulty and leave powers alone unless they are blatantly broken.
Thats position C, next to no resources allocated, not commenting otherwise?
Hmmm, periously close to my position actually. Not that suprising actually, squire - funnily enough admit all the emotional slosh, I actually respect your voice.
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Add another level of difficulty and leave powers alone unless they are blatantly broken.
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Seconded.
(although some form of 'extra benefit' would obviously be needed to promote playing in this mode, IMO this "extra level of difficulty" should be completely optional, and therefore would probably need to be slightly worse than "normal" uppermost difficulty levels when looking at influence or exp per hour)
Hey thats another C, minimal resources, no comment!
Has anyone actually got another position?
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Thats position C, next to no resources allocated, not commenting otherwise?
Hmmm, periously close to my position actually. Not that suprising actually, squire - funnily enough admit all the emotional slosh, I actually respect your voice.
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I honestly dont mind you either, we just have a different view on a couple of things.
See in this last year i have seen so many of my former mates leave this game because they are sick of nerfs, changes to the game and lack of things to do once you been here a while.
That now i honestly do believe that rocking the boat without a really good reason IS detrimental to this game.
Without turning this into a doom thread, it is my honest belief that this game needs to hang on to what its got, because lets be honest there are not going to be any more huge population explosions, and one major way to [censored] players off is nerfs for no really good reason.
Im not just on about the vocal few on here like us, im talking about Jo Bloggs who dont give a rats [censored] about game mechanics, who one day logs on and finds his favorite char once again [censored] up.
So to sum up, that is why im now against nerfs in general, im not saying this game is perfectly balanced but i am saying that its not sinking due to inbalance either, so if anything needs to change, change the difficulty for everyone, that at least is optional, and does not reduce the effectiveness of anyones individual chars.
Minimal resources? To code and implement an "expert mode" system that sits apart from the traditional Heroic-to-Invincible difficulty tiers? One that is balanced so that it provides just enough reward to encourage "high performance" toons to use it without becoming the de-facto standard setting for all PUG teams?
Personally I'd give that at least a full issue's work for the CoH coding team... 
Funnily enough, but I have been restraining myself from DOOMING. But, as you brought it up, I am of the inclination that the current mantra "Give the players what they want" smacks of desperation.
The company may be of the veiw that they are tetering on the abyss and have to make short term gains even if that is the cost of long term death (which is what a "Give the players what they want" mantra means to me). Hopefully this is because they view it a short term measure whilst more positive long term goals come to fruition (recruitement, advertising, move tie-in, conntent boost) to stop it going under before that day arrives. If one was pessimistic, it just to string out the death.
I'd say that the make-your-own content thing has the potential to be a HUGE boost to the game.
Just look at the success of "Little Big Planet"... 
Of course, this assumes that anyone out there actually gets wind of it. Advertising for CoH is all but dead in games stores these days... heck I just got my three-year veteran badge the other week, and even back when I was starting you had to look very long and very hard to find even one GvE edition poster. I ended up joining up due to good online reviews, not advertising.
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Add another level of difficulty and leave powers alone unless they are blatantly broken.
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All that would do is make already great performing sets even better , while other sets having trouble already are unplayble.
That would lead to the point where only specific sets or combos can run at highest difficulty, therfore getting a huge and unfair advantage in xp and inf gain.
mayn ppl who notice certain sets have no prob while other do struggle at highest diff , will roll those well performing sets....
City of clones here we come.....
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Add another level of difficulty and leave powers alone unless they are blatantly broken.
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All that would do is make already great performing sets even better , while other sets having trouble already are unplayble.
That would lead to the point where only specific sets or combos can run at highest difficulty, therfore getting a huge and unfair advantage in xp and inf gain.
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And what exactly is stopping others from rolling toons more suited to the higher diff if they want to reap the same XP?
I've plenty of toons which can't solo the higher difficutlies, but I don't begrudge those who can. On teams XP & Inf is shared so again I don't see a problem, the chap who's AOE orientated and outkilling my Grav/TA or whatever are both getting exactly the same XP & Inf rewards.
You're also assuming higher difficultly automaticlly means better XP/minute, which is just plain wrong a lot of the time. And for drops is doubly so.
Well, if people rolling in XP/Inf from an addition to the difficulty system is causing people a problem... don't up the rewards, but up the difficulty. The formerly proposed "Expert" adjustment to the difficulty setting system could be added for those who like the challenge, but the rewards don't need to be altered at all.
The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.
; Techbot_Alpha: Also, what Shadowe said. It seems he is still somewhat wise ; Bull Throttle: Shadowe was unwise in this instance...; Rock_Powerfist: in this instance Shadowe is wise.; Techbot_Alpha: Shadowe is very wise *nods*; Zortel: *Quotable line about Shadowe being wise goes here.*
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Add another level of difficulty and leave powers alone unless they are blatantly broken.
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All that would do is make already great performing sets even better , while other sets having trouble already are unplayble.
That would lead to the point where only specific sets or combos can run at highest difficulty, therfore getting a huge and unfair advantage in xp and inf gain.
mayn ppl who notice certain sets have no prob while other do struggle at highest diff , will roll those well performing sets....
City of clones here we come.....
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And that effects anyone how? Who is forcing anyone to run on the highest difficulty setting?
Anyway its been city of FotM for 5 years, wake up, people make chars they like, if a lot of people like the same chars, so what?
Hang on this looks like a job for the AT/Power Set choice Police to me....
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Fire Control gets +25% to its hold and stun durations.
Activating Hot feet makes you immune to +recharge buffs and -recharge debuffs.
Now, how does that effect the combinations:
Anything but /Rad or /Kin:
Woohoo I can hold for 25% longer! I am t3h ub3r!
Wow, im immune to -recharge debuffs. Thats pretty handy!
Hmmm, I cant get sped up anymore. Well, its not too bad, I cant do that to myself anyway
Overall, its hard to argue that this would be anything but an average buff for fire control (heck, Id be pretty pleased with this on my Fire/Storm).
Rad:
As above, with the sorrow that the +recharge from AM would be lost. Overall, Id say toon was about averaged out.
Kin:
[censored]! YOU NERFED MY TOON TO HELL! Em/ TOYS OUT OF PRAM!
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I think this illustrates a couple of things quite well which might help explain why your arguments don't always go down very well...
i) You really do think like a soloer, don't you? The majority of players will be at least as annoyed at not being able to receive buffs from teammates as not being able to self-buff.
ii) You haven't quite thought through the implications of the suggested change. Immunity to +recharge buffs also makes all slotted recharge enhancements, IO set bonuses and Hasten completely ineffective. Do you imagine there are many Fire/* controllers taking advantage of none of those things? So in fact it's pretty easy to argue that it is not a buff to Fire control.
Finally, since you keep repeating that what you want is balance, a nerf/buff cycle etc. and seem mystified at being misinterpreted perhaps you could have picked a less willfully inflammatory thread title than 'In praise of Nerfs!'?
By my 50s shall ye know me:
Tundra, DVM, The Late, Neutrino Ghost, Sir Clanksalot, End Of Days, Prof. Migraine
Howler Monkey