obviously you still haven't gotten that there is no need for an AT balancing. this is a solo friendly game with actual encouraged, not forced, teaming. hence why it is an MMO and not single player console game. your ideas would do nothing but unbalance the game. i would much rather have the devs spend their time and resources working on more content then waste their time and resources having to try to get code to work for something that isn't needed. if all AT's were meant to be as fast or be able to do what others could do then there wouldn't be AT's. learn to change your play style, not ask for an entire re-balancing of the game which is not needed.
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Have you played a controller or Dom to a significant level? A boss is no issue. AOE hold, with immediate ST hold followup = held boss. Not to mention the secondary effects (secondary both from the powers and the secondary power*set.*) And don't forget the contributions of the pets.|
Originally Posted by Stormfront_NA
But the truth is, a Controller can not hold all the mobs in the first try. Even if the Controller uses a variety of effects, it still will be 3 rounds before they can hold a Boss, much, much longer if an AV. So as much as I would want to prevent the tanker from receiving damage, it is not possible, and thus their heroic job of keeping others alive remains.
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Of course, enemies are also weak to various things. My Dom taking on Infernal for instance (mind/fire) had a slightly longish, but still safe fight. Attack, sleep, confuse confuse, sleep (the sleep slotted for *damage,* btw) - near perfect safety, thanks. And my Plant/Thorn? How's your melee do versus the followers of Scrapyard? At even to (the scrapyarders being) plus levels, my "slow leveling" squishy Plant/Thorn defeated literally *hundreds* of them - yes, in the mass group. Seeds, immob, creepers when I got them. They'll tear a Mastermind - one of the 'tough' ATs - apart in seconds.
Do we use that as a benchmark? Does the MM or melee character need to be made more powerful?
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| You mentioned, that your ice tank is slow at doing missions, will not question your experience, but lets us agree its slow. The question is how much slower, 20% slower, twice as slow, four times as slow? I have a fire/axe tank, I breeze fairly quickly thru mu missions, and truthfully, I am not significantly slower than when I do the same mission and difficulty with any of my Scrapers (MA/SR, Spine/Regen, Shield/MA, Shield/BS). But returning to your ice tanker at what point of it being so much slower than other ATs, or perhaps other tank AT alternate builds, you would feel a calibration would be in order? For instance, and only as a figure of speech, say your ice tanker is four times slower than a dual blade/will power tank, would you feel that something should be done for your ice build to level the playing field? Or like so many others are telling me, game is perfect, let it be? |
On a tangential point - there's another discussion going on about the rogue Vanguard you face in the RWZ and how they tear melee apart. Run those same missions with a "slow" controller and you'll find they're a cakewalk.
After playing CO I am impressed with how balanced the ATs here are.
I think there are 3 tiers:
Tier 1:
Blaster
Brute
Controller
Corruptor
Dominator
Mastermind
Scrapper
Tier 2:
Tanker
Defender
Tier 3:
Stalker
Tankers and Defenders could use just a small boost and Stalkers still need some more team utility but the others are quite close to each other.
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
If you move Blasters into tier 2, then your three tiers correspond to three categories:
Generalists: Controller, Scrapper, and every villain AT except Stalker
Team Specialists: Tanker, Defender, Blaster
Solo Specialists: Stalker.
The first category does well alone, and also contributes to a team. The second category is so specialized in its niche that it suffers somewhat when alone, but excels when on a team. Stalkers do well alone, but their specializations make them at best mediocre and at worst actively detrimental on teams - and this would be difficult to fix without changing the fundamental design of the AT.
@SPTrashcan
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I don't believe this thread has too much merit, because it seems to be taking kill speed, or in other words DPS, as the only meaningful metric of how "good" an AT is. Trying to balance damage between all ATs is not a good idea, because that removes the notion of a "damage dealer" in one fell swoop, not to mention gutting the very idea of some ATs being better at certain things than other ATs, which is kind of the point behind having them to begin with.
All ATs are not going to kill equally fast, that much is a given. The ability to kill fast is one thing an AT can be good or bad at. Survivability is another ability that not all ATs need to be good at. Team support, much as I dislike the concept, is one, as well, and believe it or not, there are PLENTY of people (myself NOT among them) who would trade personal ability for team support. Being able to turn the tide of battle via altruistically helping others vs. selfishly helping yourself is the crux of being a hero, after all.
As far as I'm concerned, the only real balancing ATs need to undergo is giving them modes of play similar to how pretty much all the upcoming super hero games are going about it, and similar to how our own dual builds can support. Have the character be allowed to have both a solo-friendly state and a team-friendly state, and the problem ought to be solved.
Unfortunately, the original game was designed with the holy trinity in mind, and that is too hard-rooted to work around now, but think about it from this perspective:
Say a Forcefields/Energy Defender needs to choose between team support and solo ability. In team mode, the Defender will be pretty much like he is now. In solo mode, his shields will only be castable on the Defender himself, but for less buff (and never on team-mates) and his Energy Blast would do more damage. Better for solo, horrible for teaming, but isn't that the point of an alternate combat mode?
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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.
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Well thought out post Samuel Tow. |
Unfortunately, the original game was designed with the holy trinity in mind, and that is too hard-rooted to work around now, but think about it from this perspective: Say a Forcefields/Energy Defender needs to choose between team support and solo ability. In team mode, the Defender will be pretty much like he is now. In solo mode, his shields will only be castable on the Defender himself, but for less buff (and never on team-mates) and his Energy Blast would do more damage. Better for solo, horrible for teaming, but isn't that the point of an alternate combat mode? |
I just wanted to toss in my 2 inf for the last past in that, IMO, I think the devs took this somewhat into account. They created a spectrum of powers within each AT and added some synergies.
Sticking with defenders, there are those that solo great (rad/son comes to mind or even a D3, which I have one of). There are those that have more issues when soloing (I notice a big difference with my emp/psi def). My kin/arch def was not as great an experience because kin and arch do not synergize well. But there are secondaries that do with kin/, I just wanted something different.
Or like my corruptors: dark/therm, ice/cold, fire/rad, son/kin. My dark/therm was very sluggish to solo due to the DPS of dark powers and the DoTs. /therm was not a good synergy, maybe I should have went dark/dark like my defender which has great synergy. My fire/rad is really powerful, but one status hit w/o a BF handy and my toggles dropped and I may be in trouble. In my experience, my ice/cold is the most powerful because she could hold bosses. My son/kin I felt was just a notch below my ice/cold (but that could my experience). Anyhow, solo-wise, only my dark/therm was an issue - the other 3, even with there other player/team buffs, were all around great.
If I wanted to solo AV's with a controller, would I go with Ill/rad or my grav/ff?
Would my ice tank solo faster as ice/EM instead of ice/ice?
If you were running a MoSTF and had a choice of stone tank or ice tank, which would you prefer for the best chance?
Again, a spectrum of powers for players to try for each AT, depending on what they want to do. And your suggestion at the end is very interesting in its possibilities, but I feel it would be very difficult because of the extremes within an AT (in other words, how do you balance out the large number of possible combinations of powers that synergize or do not synergize?).
Edit:
Just additioinal comment in that "buffing" toons would get the biggest boost out of these kind of modes. For example, what would my D3 get? Using your example, my emp/psi def would be able to boost herself. My D3 has nothing to self buff with. Or my fire/rad corr vs. ice/cold corr. Yeah, it would be nice to cast my ice shields on myself, but my fire/rad has no other player only buffs to make into self buffs. And how to deal with overlap like on a kin. Would they get both siphon speed and SB when solo?
Okay just rambling now, need more coffee.
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Well, that was just an orphaned idea without much forethought given |
Originally Posted by PennyPA
Just additioinal comment in that "buffing" toons would get the biggest boost out of these kind of modes. For example, what would my D3 get? Using your example, my emp/psi def would be able to boost herself. My D3 has nothing to self buff with. Or my fire/rad corr vs. ice/cold corr. Yeah, it would be nice to cast my ice shields on myself, but my fire/rad has no other player only buffs to make into self buffs. And how to deal with overlap like on a kin. Would they get both siphon speed and SB when solo?
Okay just rambling now, need more coffee. |
If I had to think up a solution on the spot, though, I would actually look at your appraisal of offensive and defensive sets, and perhaps look into branding each set according to what it is. Think about how, under power customization, some powers are bright by default and others are dark. So some sets could be considered solo some team.
For instance, something like Empathy would count as defensive, as most of its effects are either restorative of preventative, cast on allies to help them. A defensive set would go "solo" by introverting the effects and turning them on the caster, but preventing the caster from buffing team-mates. For a set like Dark Miasma, on the other hand, that could be considered an offensive set, so its defensive role could, in a turnabout way, turn into team buffs of some sort.
Obviously, this is a really fragmented, unpolished idea, but I've always been a fan of bringing about a sort of balance where people can pick between wanting to be a team player or a solo player, and do that IN REAL TIME, not just once at character creation. The problem, however, is that there really is no good way to do this for all ATs without turning them into each other. Trying to make Scrappers more team-centric would just turn them into Tankers.
A while ago I had an idea for a sort of Dual AT system where you could pick two ATs at creation and be stuck with matching-theme powersets (so a Fire/Fire Blaster could double up a a Fire/Fire Controller and so on), which would really remove the need to ALL ATs to be good at soloing. For instance, everyone could be a Thermal Radiation/Fire Blast Defender in one build and a Fiery Melee/Fiery Aura Scrapper in the other, alternate build and have his team/solo duality. Someone else could, instead, pick to be either a Defender or a Controller and stick to JUST team support the entire time. It's this putting of the power in the player's hands which could, potentially, allow us to have our cake and eat it, too.
As was pointed out to me last time, actually creating a discrete method for defining "matching-theme powersets" (what matches Katana, say?) and potentially creating/proliferating sets would be a crippling problem. Honestly, though, I still prefer this kind of dual-classing over completely rewriting the existing AT structure to make all ATs soloable. I mean, I'd love the latter, but I'm fully aware many, many others would not, because many make the conscious choice to play support at the detriment of their own solo ability. Some kind of middle-ground kludge might solve a lot of those problems, I would think.
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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.
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Stalkers can't solo as well as many of the tier 1's, and will be even less competitive with i16 being a buff to AOE builds.|
Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
If you move Blasters into tier 2, then your three tiers correspond to three categories:
Generalists: Controller, Scrapper, and every villain AT except Stalker Team Specialists: Tanker, Defender, Blaster Solo Specialists: Stalker. The first category does well alone, and also contributes to a team. The second category is so specialized in its niche that it suffers somewhat when alone, but excels when on a team. Stalkers do well alone, but their specializations make them at best mediocre and at worst actively detrimental on teams - and this would be difficult to fix without changing the fundamental design of the AT. |
Tankers are a team AT, but there is no incentive to have more than 1 or 2 tanks.
Defenders are a team AT that contributes less team utility than a controller.
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Well, that was just an orphaned idea without much forethought given
If I had to think up a solution on the spot, though, I would actually look at your appraisal of offensive and defensive sets, and perhaps look into branding each set according to what it is. Think about how, under power customization, some powers are bright by default and others are dark. So some sets could be considered solo some team. For instance, something like Empathy would count as defensive, as most of its effects are either restorative of preventative, cast on allies to help them. A defensive set would go "solo" by introverting the effects and turning them on the caster, but preventing the caster from buffing team-mates. For a set like Dark Miasma, on the other hand, that could be considered an offensive set, so its defensive role could, in a turnabout way, turn into team buffs of some sort. Obviously, this is a really fragmented, unpolished idea, but I've always been a fan of bringing about a sort of balance where people can pick between wanting to be a team player or a solo player, and do that IN REAL TIME, not just once at character creation. The problem, however, is that there really is no good way to do this for all ATs without turning them into each other. Trying to make Scrappers more team-centric would just turn them into Tankers. A while ago I had an idea for a sort of Dual AT system where you could pick two ATs at creation and be stuck with matching-theme powersets (so a Fire/Fire Blaster could double up a a Fire/Fire Controller and so on), which would really remove the need to ALL ATs to be good at soloing. For instance, everyone could be a Thermal Radiation/Fire Blast Defender in one build and a Fiery Melee/Fiery Aura Scrapper in the other, alternate build and have his team/solo duality. Someone else could, instead, pick to be either a Defender or a Controller and stick to JUST team support the entire time. It's this putting of the power in the player's hands which could, potentially, allow us to have our cake and eat it, too. As was pointed out to me last time, actually creating a discrete method for defining "matching-theme powersets" (what matches Katana, say?) and potentially creating/proliferating sets would be a crippling problem. Honestly, though, I still prefer this kind of dual-classing over completely rewriting the existing AT structure to make all ATs soloable. I mean, I'd love the latter, but I'm fully aware many, many others would not, because many make the conscious choice to play support at the detriment of their own solo ability. Some kind of middle-ground kludge might solve a lot of those problems, I would think. |
You are slowly starting to provide great constructive criticism, thank you!
The concept of certain, for instance, Defender ATs not having buffing others, versus others who does is an astute observation, Penny has a very relevant observation as to where to we set the benchmark for AT performance comparison?
The first consideration, is as a benchmark is set, it should not result with an AT being nurfed. It should instead look at an under-performing AT and how to re-calibrate it to approach the benchamark.
The second consideration, is that there are inherent class differences; which would naturally impact the overall how the AT is applied. For instance, a Tank has exceptional defenses, the best, but it is instead balanced by having a low DPS. A Blaster with virtually no defenses is balanced by having a very high DPS. Now given this, is the Blaster to be assumed to be naturally faster in soloing than the tank? At first glance, we would want to say, yes. But in practicality, does our thoughts hold? A Tank can go in, suffer little damage and eventually kill all the mobs. The Blaster may range attack a group, take one or two down, and be forced to retreat to safety, let the hornets nest settle, and return for round 2; the effect is that the Blaster while killing a mob much faster than a tanker, she may take just as long as a tanker to eliminate the entire mob group. A Scrapper while hitting hard, may find themselves having to rest longer than other ATs in between mob group fights. Ideally the overall balance from this situations is that the various ATs can have roughly the same performance. They are in fact accomplishing the same task, but doing it differently; which as I understand from my closed beta days to be the actual goal of the game.
The third consideration as Samuel very aptly stated, the power sets within the ATs themselves provide balancing challenges. For instance take a Kin Defender, their power has a natural synergy with their secondary attack powers, same can be said for Rad as well. Contrast that synergy with an Empath Defender were most her primary powers has no impact on herself, as opposed to the Kin. I find it a difficult proposition to think how can you address the two characteristics. For example, you can not just raise the damage Defenders do, because of the primaries that have no synergy, because those with synergy would become over-powered. So how you help those Defenders with out synergy? Similar school of thought can be applied to other intra-AT builds.
In the big picture, should a Defender at the end of the day do as much effective damage as a Blaster? Think of this, before you answer. let me just say this; a Blaster gets all of its damage up-front and unconditionally. A Defender must first debuff its enemy's resistances so its reduced damage attack would effectively accomplish what the Blaster can do straight out.
Hugs
Stormy
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Have you played the high level game?|
Originally Posted by Stormfront_NA
I have read some very good replies, but...
I don't believe an AT should be punished for its superb team support abilities, at the expense of soloing. 1. I stand on the belief all ATs should be very good at both solo and team settings. 2. I also stand on the belief that being both good at solo and team are compatible. Lets me address my first belief, while certain AT approaches can make it easier to solo than others, it should be cosmetic not drastic. I still point the amount of damage a tank can resist or avoid is consistent and reliable, the Controller and Defender's damage mitigation is not. The fact of having less reliable damage mitigation powers than a tanker, demands a balancing ability of some sort, that actually works, so they can both solo and group as well as the tank. I saw a poster wisely noted: If a Blaster had all those protections, why would they need a group? Great observation; question: Why does a tanker need a group today? They don't. Don't believe me? Wait till I16 comes out, and watch how many lonely tanks at group equivalents of 8 going at it, that should prove the point...Some solo to group balance, ah? If you want to farm, do you have a hard time deciding between a Defender and your Tanker? While the question is plainly sarcastic, no one in their right mind would solo farm with a Defender (there are some very special exceptions), the Tanker avenue is much more user friendly and reliable. In fact, I would contend that both the Tanker and Scraper are excellent examples of ATs that does both Solo and Team wonderfully well. I think its time, all the other ATs could do both Solo and Group just as wonderfully well, and I am now including corruptors, dominators, etc. Now, if we are going to be so group minded, and say that should rule over solo ability, then use the solo nurf bat across the board then. Why should a Tank require MAG 12 status effect when solo? Why should a tank has such high soft cap damage resitance when solo?, why should a tank has such high defense soft caps when solo? How you justify these really nice level of abilities, why should a tank be able to self rez? self heal? where is the dependence here? Lol half of the defenders primary powers does not even apply to them as is, while a tanker's primary powers are all fully useful in both solo and group settings, is this truly fair? Just some food for thought... Hugs Stormy |
I see Trollers/Defenders doing stuff my scrappers can't.
Do my scrapper solo fast? Yes. Fast enough that, I usually hate to solo the Trollers/Defenders/Tankers.
Tankers may have survivability going for them, and late game more damage, but not really a solo with speed AT.
Now my Trollers/Defenders may solo slower than my Scrapper, but put them on a team, and most of the time, they do more for the overall team, than my scrapper can.
Solo GM's...that goes in the Defender/Troller area, havent heard of a Scrapper doing that yet. :/
Solo AVs...yup, heard alot of ATs have done it. Does it take certain sets? Yes. Force Field isn't one of them, for Trollers/Defenders, but then Force Field has other things going for them.
I remember a Dev Post saying they thought Defenders where perfectly balanced. Though I'd say their Inherent leaves much to be desired.
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Silent Shadow Blade - 50 Katana/SR/BM Scrapper
Uphir - 50 Fire/Fire/Fire Blaster
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Patently false.|
Originally Posted by Stormfront_NA
Yes, as you said "Once" the controller holds the mob down, its cake. You are absolutely right, and could not be more right. But the key word is "Once", thats the catch I been talking about all this time with regards the Controllers' use of hold as their means of protection, when compared to the tankers and scrappers protections that provides the benefit without condition.
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ALL archetypes face the same problem with scaling, random number generation, large numbers of enemies, and the purple patch. You do more damage, and hit more often, against enemies below your level; you do less damage, and hit less often, against enemies above your level.
EVERY defensive-oriented toon faces those problems. Scrappers, Brutes, Tankers, and Scrappers get hit harder, and hit more often, when facing larger groups of high-level enemies. Controllers' and Dominators' holds hit less often and last less time. Defenders' and Corruptors' debuffs are less effective. ALL attacks hit less often. Damage scales down.
If you want to seriously argue for a rebalance of every archetype, consider the following:
Buffs are additive, rather than multiplicative. This makes Defenders, Corruptors, Masterminds and Controllers each a force multiplier. Watch me do the math, D&D-style.
Suppose, using d20 mechanics for ease of illustration, enemies hit 50% of the time (on a 20-sided die, call it an 11 or better). Your character has 35% (+7) defense, so you are only hit on a roll of 18-20. My character has 40% (+8) defense and is hit only on a 19 or 20. In other words, you are hit 3 times out of 20, I am hit 2 times out of 20. We each have 100 hit points, and enemies do 25 points of damage; we can each survive only 4 direct hits. This means you will survive for 26 rounds, and I will survive for 40.
Our baseline, before we add a Defender into the mix, my defense is 5% more than yours, but I survive 53% longer.
Now we add a Defender. The Defender gives us each +5% (+1). Now you will be hit on a 19 or 20, and I will be hit on a 20.
Your character has 40% (+8) defense and will survive 40 rounds. My character has 45% (+9) defense, and will survive 80 rounds, twice as long as you.
Your defense went up by 5%, and your survival went up by 53%. My defense went up by 5%, and my survival went up by 100%. The benefit we each receive is not proportionate.
Force. Multiplier. The buff scale is exponential, not linear.
If you want to balance the archetypes, step one is to rewrite the entire powers system from the ground up. You might want to ask Sony Online Entertainment how that worked out for them.
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There are also outliers in the 3 team specialists and the solo specalists. I have one of each of them (there are more than one) |
Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
If you move Blasters into tier 2, then your three tiers correspond to three categories:
Generalists: Controller, Scrapper, and every villain AT except Stalker Team Specialists: Tanker, Defender, Blaster Solo Specialists: Stalker. The first category does well alone, and also contributes to a team. The second category is so specialized in its niche that it suffers somewhat when alone, but excels when on a team. Stalkers do well alone, but their specializations make them at best mediocre and at worst actively detrimental on teams - and this would be difficult to fix without changing the fundamental design of the AT. |
A Shield/DM tank solos quite effectively, not as fast as a scrapper with the same powersets, but faster than most other tanks.
My Rad/Sonic can solo AVs. I'll just leave that one at that
My Sonic/Devices is actually MORE effective solo, because I have tools to use that most teams don't have the patience for. On a team I am effectively a Sonic/Nothing blaster because most of the Devices powers require set-up time.
I have a DM/Nin stalker that fills the role of a scrapper on a team quite well. My wife plays a Necro/Poison MM and we duo frequently. Her pets make a joke of minions and LTs, and my stalker 3 shots bosses (I've killed an EB with 6 hits before using inspirations) I solo great, but I have a purpose on a team as well. A brute will do more damage than me, but going in cold (with no fury) a brute will take longer to kill a boss.
Since there are such discrepancies within the ATs, any balancing attempts beyond what is already done will throw things out of whack for the rest of the powersets involved.
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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. |
Hi:
I seen many good posts, and yet I see many post having difficulty de-coupling group performance versus solo performance. I am really not addressing group performance, for the AT mix of abilities do work well. That it could be imrpoved, obviously, is it really needed? Not really.
When solo, the performance of each AT and their variations are all over the map. Some use the explanation that an AT is better than other for group support of the other AT, nevr themselves, and thus it only makes sense for that supporting AT to be less effective than the group supported AT. While the reasoning is not with out merit, its not entirely fair to the AT doing the support when Solo.
What I seek is a little bit more perfromance uniformity between the ATs and withn the ATs themselves. It can be done, with a little thought, and not by having the well working AT or AT mix nurfed. It can also be done, without unbalancing the game as well; if done cautiously.
At the moment, I have all kinds of ATs fully developerd and many different intra AT builds as well. If I feel like soloing, and just have plain fun, I pull either my Tanker or Scrappers, their natural defenses and attacks are very forgiving if I play in a relax and care free manner. But at times, I want the variety, the do the same ole thing, but a bit differently, so here comes out the other ATs and the perceived performance variations depending on the particular build I am employing. Recently I respecced and re-Od set my Emp/Psi Defender. I have no problems going through a mission at level 5 difficulty, and mopping bosses away; eventually. I do a lot of blasting and eventually I win, I am tough enough and nimble enough that my one and only self heal happens to be sufficient for the task, now that I can hover and remain elevated despite being mezzed, has done much for my survival as well. But still I would like to be able to kill as quickly as I can with Rad defender, and I know it can be done code wise with a little ingenuity. In fact it would be nice, if you all could suggest what does code changes could be, or perhaps what methods are available to an EMP primary defender to increase her DPS ability.
Hugs
Stormy
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For me, I see it as fair. What the AT looses solo is more than made up teamed. With my emp/psi def, if I put fort/CM/AB constantly on my friend's blaster when we duo, he is a killing machine that makes up for what we could do individually. | ...its not entirely fair to the AT doing the support when Solo. |
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| But still I would like to be able to kill as quickly as I can with Rad defender, and I know it can be done code wise with a little ingenuity. In fact it would be nice, if you all could suggest what does code changes could be, or perhaps what methods are available to an EMP primary defender to increase her DPS ability. |
Edit: Just checking back in. I forgot to add that rad can buff with AM. Even my D3 def can buff with shadowfall. But in my experience, those powers are not what those powersets are known for. In other words, on my /rad corr, I have never seen a team go "Yay! We have AM and can steamroll AV's!"
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The problem is is that you can't decouple these things. You can't just take a look at solo performance, and neglect to balance things for a team. If you do that, Defenders and Controllers will be the only people ever to be invited to a team, because they'd bring significantly more to the team than a similar Tanker, Scrapper, or Blaster could, because they'd have been buffed so much to make them better soloers that they'd blow everything else out of the water on teams.|
Originally Posted by Stormfront_NA
I seen many good posts, and yet I see many post having difficulty de-coupling group performance versus solo performance. I am really not addressing group performance, for the AT mix of abilities do work well. That it could be imrpoved, obviously, is it really needed? Not really. |
So you can't just say that you're going to boost solo performance, and leave teaming performance alone. The powers don't work that way.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
I was gonna write a big long thing, but basically others have covered most of the bases. ATs aren't balanced on a narrow set of parameters, and the overall performance of them in this game is actually pretty close. No AT is particularly suffering at this point, and most of the truly needed changes exist on the underperforming powersets level.
If you really want to fix a broken game balance wise, go look at Champions. That game is toppled and scattered when it comes to balance. Fair warning- the design decisions there have Arcanaville scratching her head, you're not likely to have an easier time.
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill
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Ah, here's the heart of your whole thread. Some player DO tend to regard buffers and debuffers as "support classes" (a term I dislike) and treat them like subservient followers witnessing that player's greatness. That probably peaked during the "herd a million" days for Tankers.|
Originally Posted by Stormfront_NA
The fundamental disagreement is, some believe that some ATs should be made to be subservient to others in the form of a support class, and as a reward for that, they will be very good at being subservient/support, and very, very mediocre at solo.
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But here's the thing. That's not an AT copping that attitude -- it's a player copping that attitude. You are not "subservient" as a Defender or Controller buffing and debuffing any more than a Tanker or Scrapper are "subservient" because they have to get their hands dirty like common laborers. That whole concept that has you unhappy is a product of mindset, not game rules.
Here's how you fix it. You don't even have to wait for the devs! Whenever you encounter someone who thinks you're subservient, open the "player note" feature on that player, and type "Bozo", and one-star him.
Now that you can tell who they are, just don't team with the bozos.
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
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In other words, you want every archetype to play exactly the same.|
Originally Posted by Stormfront_NA
I seen many good posts, and yet I see many post having difficulty de-coupling group performance versus solo performance. ... When solo, the performance of each AT and their variations are all over the map. ... What I seek is a little bit more perfromance uniformity between the ATs and withn the ATs themselves.
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I can't begin to explain to you why that's broken. That's balance for the sake of balance.
Please try to comprehend this. Some players LIKE playing a so-called "support class." Those players will HOWL like banshees if you suddenly turn all Defenders, Dominators, Corruptors, etc., into Just-Like-A-Scrapper solo machines with no team synergy.
There's no particular reason to create absolute parity in the way every Archetype and every Power Set plays, except that you want the same I'm-Such-A-Killing-Machine rush on every character.
I'll say it again. Not everybody WANTS that.
Your ideas here, frankly, are what lead directly to the likes of D&D 4.0, where everybody is so balanced that you can't tell the classes apart.
Well the idea of all ATS being as good, sounds good in paper, but in experience does not work as well, and would be really difficult to accomplish with the diversity of ATs, Sets and inventions to boot.
If you want to solo and feel good, do a melee, you want to be challenged play a defender...
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I couldn't keep reading after this line.
| Tankers are a pleasure to play in either solo |
Be well, people of CoH.
Should doms be balanced against controllers or blasters - which are they?
Is a stalker more like a blaster or scrapper?
MM's I hear are the "tanks on red side". So my MM's should be toned down to the leveling speed of a solo stone tank?
Okay, I admit too many different ATs there. Let's stick with one - controller - should fire/kin be the standard or earth/rad? Ill/storm maybe?
My grav/ff is probably slower than a grav/storm, grav/rad, grav/kin but faster than a grav/emp?
Just where is the line drawn for speed? I am boggled!