Enhancement Diversity and today

While part of ED was to weaken the players, it also had the goal of encouraging different builds. From a few threads here and there I have to wonder if they actually succeeded in getting players to use differing builds. It seems like certain IOs have a tendency to be shunned in favor of doing things the "right" way. Wondering what everyone else's opinion on this is.

My personal take: I think it worked. IO's brought a new level of "cram as much utility into the power as you can," but all in all, it has diversified the builds.

For instance: Now you have blasters that are S/L softcapped, but others who nuke every 20 seconds. Some are ranged softcap hoverblasters. Still others are AoE kings with so much damage bonus that they kill large groups in a few seconds. Even others are built to offer single target DPS to the exclusion of all else. Another category are the blast-dominators, who focus on the control abilities of their sets.

Hardly any of my characters were affected by ED. My main had some heals six-slotted for healing, but I respecced to three-heals, three-recharges.

I think it's the overall way it was handled, before during and after, that left the biggest sour taste. The GDN/PP just added to it.

Edit: Oh, and yes--my Empathy ScrapFender loves IO builds.

There will always be min/maxers who work to create the optimal build, and those who do their best to copy those builds.

ED, and by extension the invention system, allowed people to be creative with their builds, removed many of the "required" powers, and allowed the creation of niche characters.

@SpaceNut - My 50s, AE arcs and current projects at ParagonWiki

I'd still be happier with the aftermath of ED if more care had been given to the other end of the balance. We got a lot of "Blasters need to stop slotting all of their attacks with five Damage" and not enough "Why do so few players find it worthwhile to slot some Range instead of Damage? Maybe we need to look at range a little."

Some of it is also a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yeah, my ancient MA/Regen scrapper has endredux in all her attacks now. ... not necessarily because I can only slot so much damage and accuracy, but because I can't 6-slot Quick Recovery. Similarly, how many people would be slotting recharge in their attacks if we still had easily attainable perma-Hasten for all?

That said, there's certainly more diversity in builds than there was before ED. We have procs and set bonuses to thank for that.

My personal take is players were always able to use different builds, all they had to do was use their imagination, but I can't blame players for cookie cutter builds as "real" numbers were not available then. ED actually prevents players from diversifying builds because you get less "bang for your buck". If all they wanted to do was encourage different builds they would have made numbers available to us form the start and let us decide. I've always referred to ED as Enhancement Dummification because of what it limits builds to, in essence you have less diversity in builds; some of which was alleviated with IO sets. But since many power types lack a variety of sets, there is A LOT more work still needed.

For example a player 6 slots a particular attack with all damage does not make them more powerful than one that uses 4 damage and two recharge or 3 damage, 1 accuracy and 2 recharges. Because not only do you have to factor in damage, but also attack rate, accuracy, endurance cost etc.

Some players may like ED, some may not, personally I'm on the fence about it and I am so used to it I don't even sweat it anymore. But much like the GDN I think the main lesson to be learned was in the way the development team at the time handled the situation.

I don't frankenslot (mainly because it's too complicated and too time consuming to create builds) and only use IO sets on my main hero and villain. Every other toon I have has regular IOs slotted and they pretty much follow the formula 2 acc, 2 dam, 1 redrec, 1 endrec if there's enough slots for that and 2 of one and 2 of other for the support/buff powers.

If you take away IO sets and frankenslotting you pretty much have cookie builds again, just not six slotted for dam/healing/whatever you fancy.

And I still think ED was a kick to the balls.

Without ED, the game would have died.

My regen scrapper has near-softcapped positional defenses. That's not a recommended way to build a regen scrapper, but I like it. ^_^

I do agree, it was the IO system that encouraged diversity. And it's complicated, yeah, but it allows you to go in so many different directions. Instead of six-slotting my attack for damage, I can pick a set that grants me defense, or recharge, or hit points and regen... I can maybe get away with 5 pieces of a set or 4, and use the extra slots somewhere else. Choice it part of why it's complicated, but that's a good thing.

I think our current system is decent. It's not great and it could be far better, but there's enough diversity to not call ED a waste.

You can do just SOs or standard IOs. But there's not much variety there. I mean, is there anyone who doesn't slot their attacks for 3x damage? Or doesn't put 3 RES slots in Temp Invuln? People are still slotting to the maximum.

As far as IOs go, there is variety there to a small degree. But there are too many junk sets and not enough alternatives. There are really only a couple things worth building for, and if you look at builds you're going to see the same sets springing up all the time. It's not like people are hitting new milestones and creating awesome new builds using sets like Trap of the Hunter or Pacing of the Turtle. It's all Positron's Blast and Luck of the Gambler.

Still, it's better than just having everyone 6-slot attacks and put all damages in them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

ED didn't really make much sense until IOs were introduced. That was a "Ooooh, so that's why you did that." kind of moment.

You know, there are days when I wish I could flip a switch and wipe people's memories. Then maybe the ED deconstructions will finally stop, but even then it feels like the spectre of that thing is so strong it would punch through causality just for the sake of reminding people.

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.