A numbers question on multi-aspect enhancements

Just about, yes. These would have to be hand-made every time, however, because of the HUGE number of combinations we could be looking at. As far as I can tell, there are currently 26 aspects to enhance, which would give us 650 unique enhancements, ignoring aspect order, and that's for each 5-level spread. Granted, the likelihood of you needing, say, Sleep/Damage isn't great... But then you have Frozen Aura. The likelihood of needing Intangibility/Defence is even more remote, but who knows? Maybe there's a power that does that that I just don't know about. Or maybe we could see a power in the future that's kind of like Syphon Speed - makes an enemy intangible by draining its "essence" and boosting your defence. The point is, there aren't many aspect combos we can look at and say "This will never ever ever EVER be useful!" and just drop them from the list. And even then, those wouldn't be many.

As such, the idea I was mulling about was actually a kind of pick-your-own aspects situation, where you'd pick each aspect of the enhancement separately and forge it together to "craft" the right effect, as it were. It would avoid the MASSIVE clutter that such a huge pool of enhancements would create, and it would actually make the economy to do with them rather much more friendly. If you're looking for a specific recipe out of six hundred in a non-weighted drop list, you're not likely to get the right drop, and you're not likely to see many for sale, or indeed many bidders. I'm not sure what kind of effect relatively easily available dual-aspect enhancements would have on the game, so I'm somewhat leery of making them cheap, but as you mentioned, there are still benefits to be held for using ACTUAL Sets.

To reiterate your point, Set enhancements still have Set bonuses, which more Common dual-aspect enhancements would simply not. Having seen people with set bonus lists longer than my average post size has convinced me of that. As well, things like "Knockback Protection" are not actually enhancement effects, but rather specific aspects to Set enhancements, and those would not transfer over to these. There's also the other side of the issue - powers with only a single aspect, or only a couple of aspects. These powers would still be better-served by single-aspect enhancements, because they are rather a LOT stronger per aspect.

Now, there's also something that I've been asked (in a roundabout way) several times that I also want to address: Why not use Hamidon or Set enhancements? A couple of reasons, really.

Hamidon Enhancements are only available at the very end of the end game, at the point where you're done with almost all of your levelling up. I'm looking for something that's available earlier and that's capable altering most, if not all of the game. Secondly, Hamidon enhancements come in very limited combinations. ParagonWiki lists only 11, in fact, and I've already established that there'd be more than that required to cover all bases. Additionally, Hamidon Enhancements are "epic loot," which is something I'm trying to avoid by making these more common.

Set Enhancements do cover all level ranges, but they suffer from many of the same problems. The number of different combinations in any one level range is limited, and limited further still by some sets having such good bonuses that they end up very rare and incredibly expensive on the Market. They are further limited, as far as I'm aware, by your inability to slot the same set enhancement from the same set multiple times into the same power. Being that I don't use Sets, I could be wrong on this, but so I read. Set enhancements are further burdened by their Set bonuses, which are sometimes, if not oftentimes, a much bigger consideration than the enhancements' actual enhancement value.

A dual-aspect Common enhancement would have none of the above problems. It would come in all aspects at all levels, and it ought to have a relatively much more stable cost, though I could easily see it having a significantly greater cost than current Common enhancements. I would nevertheless like to see these available for purchase at least as recipes from the University tables, or as vendor items if we decide to go this route. In fact, I don't see why we can't have both - one SO-lite-style enhancement that works like ye olde enhancements and is about 60% of a SO per aspect, and one common variant that's about 60% per aspect from a Common of the same level. It would still make a good mix of things and make different enhancements useful at different levels. In fact, due to how ED works, dual-aspect SOs might end up being stronger than Inventions for longer than actual SOs, which ought to be interesting to see.

That's basically the suggestion I was working at, in a rough draft with no forward planning. I'm sure it's full of holes and potential problems, but I can't say I've really ironed it out yet, so that's to be expected.

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.

That was actually kind of the point. I usually cite "complexity" when talking about why I don't want to deal with Set enhancements, but that's usually a major case of "can't be arsed" stemming from issues of availability and inconsistency, as I outlined in my previous post. Instituting a "clean" category of enhancements that enhance two aspects, but are otherwise not tied to any other conditionals like level, specific set, additional bonus or cost to acquire would remove all the chaff that bugs me and actually allow me to get down to the nuts and bolts of the the thing and iron out a few rules of thumb. I mean, I cite complexity, but I still have a degree in applied mathematics which should be good for SOMETHING

That said, I doubt I'd be examining DPS, though that's not out of the question. I tend to use enhancements to take a concept build power-wise and see what I can do to make it work number-wise. I'll almost always compromise power for concept when it comes to power selection, but almost never compromise power for concept in slotting, as I don't view slotting as a concept-expressing tool. I don't "see" enhancements. They just alter behind-the-scene stats. It's kind of like having a flashy car and wanting to keep it shiny on the inside, but you're gonna' get dirty if you want to keep it actually running.

That said, standalone multi-aspect Commons is what it's going to take to get me to mess with this. Nothing in the CURRENT system will do it, and you can take that to the bank.

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.

I actually felt the same way when I first heard about Inventions. "We'll be using enhancements that enhance many things at once often? Gah! Do not want! Too complicated!" And to be fair, I held that belief for at least a couple of years until someone gave me 5-slot slotting with theoretical multi-aspect enhancements that had greater values than the 6-slot slotting I'd been using just to shut me up, and I've had a gnawing doubt since then. I keep thinking that if I can avoid the root of my problem, which is actually set bonuses and limited combinations, I could actually get into the system and have fun with it, too. We don't have that yet, however, and I have SERIOUS doubts we ever will, so I'm not looking at multi-aspects too closely for the moment.

Tell you one thing, though - I'll be jumping for joy if we did get dual-aspect commons. I don't want to bother with triple-aspect ones for the moment (or ever), but dual-aspect ones would definitely be a good addition in my opinion.

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.

So craft-able HOs but on IO scales? Very yes.

Dag nabbit, I hate looking at numbers. Yet here I go poking my head into a thread that has me well beyond considering it enough to download Mids.

If I could craft up any multi-aspect IOs I wanted but ditch the set bonuses? I'd probably start creating bucketloads of Acc/Dam/End/Rech quad-aspects

Of course, there are still builds where I'd want set bonuses, but with the way multi-aspects scale for IOs, giving each enhancement every aspect you care about for the power is ridiculous... ly awesome

Hence why I was looking at limiting it to two aspects only. Cramming all possible aspects in each enhancement is just so badly overpowered it's not even funny. Hell, the aforementioned "craftable HOs with Inventions scaling" is skirting the line of overpowered as it is, especially with the kind of slotting Tetris solutions I've been getting in this thread.

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 whole point of this idea (and at this point I might as well just handle the actual suggestion here) was to sidestep Set limitations of availability and applicability. In a sense, to allow people to handle their enhancements in a way identical to how they handle SOs or commons, not worrying about which enhancement can fit into which power, which enhancement even EXISTS and which enhancement can be slotted with which other.

Now, on the other hand, I haven't actually looked at Inventions, themselves. It is quite possible the more popular enhancement combinations exist in multiple instances at all levels. I'm willing to accept this as generally true without asking for proof. I do not believe, however, that less popular combos exist as commonly at all levels, if they even exist at all. For instance, how many powers can use both speed buff AND speed debuff enhancing? Outside of Syphon speed, I'm not aware of any, but even if there are, they are few. How many different sets have that?

This recreates a VERY old problem that is currently already fixed - The Power 10. Remember that one? Out of I think around 30 enhancements total at the time, only 10 became available as DOs at level 12 and only 10 as SOs at level 22, with the rest ulocking one tier later at 22 and 32, respectively (30, actually). I don't remember which ones were Power 10, but I believe it included damage, accuracy, endurance reduction, defence, resistance, heal and a few others. Notably, NOT hold, stun, sleep or confuse.

This is the problem I see with Set enhancement applicability as a general case. Yes, sets combos do exist to give the more popular slottings to the more popular powers, but do enough sets exist to give ALL possible slottings to ALL possible powers? I do not believe so. I realise that that in itself is a major benefit, but so are Set bonuses, and I'm suggesting that those be removed from these theoretic enhancements. I'm suggesting a trade, as it were.

I should also note that my math from before sucked big time. 26 enhancements in two slots, excluding doubles and ignoring order, doesn't actually go THAT high. Let's see if I can figure it out. It's not 26*25, but rather 25 + 24 + ... + 1 = 325, by Excel's calculations. Not quite 600+, but still quite a lot.

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.

None, and for good reason. Speed Buff and Speed Debuff are the same enhancement, just like Damage and Damage Resistance are the same enhancement. Try this: slot a Centriole (Damage/Range) in Thermal's Fire Shield (which is +RES). You'll see the Damage Resistance for the power go up 33%, when the regular Damage Resistance enhancements only give 20%. Similarly, slotting a Slow Movement ("Speed Debuff") enhancement in Siphon Speed also increases your running speed, and in fact, Siphon Speed doesn't take Run Speed enhancements ("Speed Buff"):


Buffs and debuffs are the same when it comes to enhancing. They do the same thing, only one applies a positive change and the other a negative change. But it's the same attribute being changed.

The "problem" enhancements would be Damage/Resistance and Defense Buff/DeBuff. This is because Damage and Defense DeBuff are Schedule A (33% in SO values) and Damage Resistance and Defense Buff are Schedule B (20% in SO values). Right now this can be exploited through HOs to get 66% enhancement (pre-ED) out of 2 slots, when the intended enhancement is 60% (pre-ED) with 3 slots. Invention enhancements use the "Set" system precisely to work around that; sets that include Schedule A Damage enhancement are only allowed in powers that do damage, and sets that include Schedule B Damage enhancement are only allowed in powers that resist damage. Remove the set limitations, and you have a problem.

Huh... See, this is kind of why I wanted to make that thread - to look into all the potential holes such a suggestion would open up. I was well aware there were things I wasn't taking into account, but I honestly wasn't taking THIS into account. It makes sense now that you mention it, though.

So, basically, what you're saying is that we can't have an enhancement that enhances say, 33% damage and 20% damage resistance because that's basically two of the same thing? That could be problematic. I'd actually ask why that's done like this, but I'm sure this is a question none of us can answer. We could possibly hope on Arcana, but in this case I have my doubts about that, as well.

So, that explains the restriction of sets by type. Is there something that can be done to limit this effect in such a way that could still be applicable for a more free-form kind of enhancement production? Obviously, we can't go with what I'd originally planned, because what I had would produce effects like the above-mentioned speed buff/speed debuff enhancements, which you explained can't work. Clearly we'll need some system to prevent redundant enhancement effects from being put together into the same multi-aspect enhancement, and that should be fairly simple to work in, at least in terms of planning. Simply prevent certain aspects of being put into the same enhancement with certain other ones.

How can we keep Schedule A enhancements from enhancing effects intended to be Schedule B, however? That is, how do we do this without resorting to simply retreading Set categories? I realise we'll have to look at SOMETHING like that, so perhaps modifying the system a LITTLE may be the key.

Here's what bugs me about the status quo of Set Inventions as I understand it: You have several wide-scale categories with rules defined per category that powers are split into, which is a pretty severe example of high-level management. The problem with high-level management is that it works by stating design rules and basically shoehorning existing examples into the rule they fit best, making no distinction between the actual individual settings. I guess a possible alternative to this would be tagging powers not by the set that they belong to, but rather by the intended function of their effects. Here's what I have in mind, and this is something which may bring a bit more optimizational complexity to the table.

Suppose we are allowed to make multi-aspect enhancements in any combination we want that doesn't double up the same actual aspect. This would allow us to make enhancements with effects that could possibly enhance an aspect for more or less than its schedule permits. So let us pick the enhancement schedule when combining it. If, for instance, I pick a Defence/Damage enhancement, such as for slotting into Parry. Upon making this enhancement, I will be allowed to pick whether it is Schedule A, so say ~30% on both aspects, or Schedule B, ~20% per aspect, just as illustrative numbers. They're probably not true, but I don't want to go hunting down numbers now.

The flip side of this is that each power will have the effects it can even be slotted for tagged as what schedule they are. For instance, in Parry, damage would be Schedule A and defence Schedule B. Each power, when being enhanced with a dual aspect enhancement, will only be permitted if the enhancement values are LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO the schedule of the LOWEST-VALUE aspect. So, if you want to slot Damage/Defence in Parry, you could only slot a B/B Damage/Defence enhancement. As such, if you want to use combined Damage/Defence enhancements in Parry, you will have to deal with lower values for damage. Alternatively, you could not bother and slot the power with single aspect enhancements, or multi-aspect enhancements that don't affect a Schedule B aspect at all, like Damage/Endurance or Accuracy/Recharge.

See, when Inventions came out, people started asking questions like "Well, why use anything else?" or "Why use Hamidon enhancements, then?" This would sort of answer that question. The same kind of slotting won't always work in every power, nor will the same kind of enhancements always be applicable. This breaks up one of the biggest complaints with ED back when it was new - that it didn't diversify anything, but merely changed the "ideal slotting" to something else. This could (I don't know if it will, but it could) make it so there is no one single ideal slotting for, say, every attack power. Sometimes multi-aspect enhancements work best, sometimes they actually get dragged down by intended schedule and single-aspect ones are better. And even then, you're still foregoing Set bonuses, which gives Sets a point as well. It complicates the system a bit more, but I honestly think that's not as big a problem as it seems, at first.

*question*
Incidentally, does Defence Buff slotting not also increase Defence Debuff Resistance? People tell me it doesn't, but real numbers seem to show that it does.

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.

It depends on the power and whether it's marked to do so. All of SR's powers that grant DDR do get buffed by Defense enhancement. This is why SR users run around at capped DDR if they take and slot the toggles and passives.

It makes sense when you think of enhancements are buffs. You have a power that deals damage (+damage) and a power that resists damage (-damage). It's the same attribute, damage, that's being enhanced. I believe that damage resistance debuff powers would be enhanced by this as well, but all the damage resistance powers I looked at aren't affected by buffs or enhancements, probably because of this very reason.

This will sound pessimistic, but if modifying the system to prevent this problem were possible, you'd think something would have been done about it already, seeing how HOs have been exploiting this flaw for six years now. As they came up with a completely different way to limit slotting (sets), it might be that the system just isn't modifiable that way without some deep changes.

Well, you already have that, in the form of sets. Why reinvent the wheel? I think what you really want is set enhancements without the bonuses and without the "only one of a kind" limitation, so you can slot as many dam/acc or acc/rech as you wanted in a single power. That might be easier to work in. But again, I'm forced to ask: which powers are you seeing that need this freeform enhancement system, because they can't benefit from "traditional" frankenslotting?

I have no clue, but I'd go with what real numbers say.

I'm actually specifically looking at Grant Cover for this. Normally, I wouldn't care about whether enhancing defence-granting powers for defence would grant defence debuff resistance, because I'm going to slot them for defence anyway, hence it doesn't really matter. Grant Cover, however, provides defence to OTHER people, but NOT to me, which makes me reluctant to slot it for defence. If it gave me defence debuff resistance, then I would, and other people would benefit from it. If it doesn't, then I'm just going to stiff other people and feel really sorry on the inside.

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.

Yeah, I kind of figured they were the same modifier, but what I don't get is why code it like that. It seems to me like that actually makes things more complicated to balance when effects are interlinked like that. In fact, the complexity found in most logical puzzles actually comes from the same source - the fact that you can't move all pieces independently, and you have to figure out a way to plan far enough ahead to have them all click into place.

Basically, other than convenience, I don't see a reason to interlink things like that.

I want to address both points together. Set limitations may or may not have been born out of the need to counter-balance these problems, but set limitations are centred around... Well, the actual sets. This is problematic in a system that has no inherent sets of enhancements, as the current constructs are less mechanical and more thematic, in a lot of way. The reason I'm reinventing the wheel, as it were, is because I want to reduce these enhancements down to their basic effects as much as possible and divorce them from any other abstract collections that may bind them. Sets are, whether we like to admit it or not, linked together by theme in a large way. "Heal" sets are going to have some degree of healing enhancements in them, whereas attacks sets probably aren't, making attacks that heal (like Syphon Life) a little harder to slot.

Lastly, it's not a question of powers that I want to slot but can't (I haven't actually looked into Set enhancements much, and it shows), but rather a general problem of approach. One of the reasons I dislike set enhancements is the fact that they're split up in abstract sets, rather than sets based on aspect effect functionality. At a stretch, I would not be averse to reusing the same mechanic that divides Set enhancements into their respective sets, provided we redefine what those sets hold. For instance, I would not really mind having a Targeted AoE category for these dual-aspect enhancements, provided ALL combinations that don't cause direct problems with these powers were available there, and they were not further subdivided.

To be honest, in terms of pure sense of aesthetics, it's the abstract nature of named sets that bugs me the most. Alleviating that would make the system vastly more appealing to me.

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.

From CoD:
RES(Defense) +13.84% for 0.75s [Non-resistable]

It doesn't specifically state unenhanceable here.

And Mids is showing that the DDR value DOES change as I add defense enhs.

So, yes. The DDR in Grant Cover IS enhanceable by defense enhancements.

Well, I can think of a few areas where we need more options. My initial plan with DP was to 3-slot Acc/Rch and then jam in 3 procs, since the base damg on many attacks was fairly unimpressive. Color me surprised when there are NO Acc/Rch IOs for Ranged Damage or Targeted AOE, which are most of DP's attacks. In fact, the only Acc/Rech I could find were in Accurate Defense Debuffs. That's cool for the attacks which take Defense Debuff, but that leaves Dual Wield high and dry.

So I could definitely see the merits of freeform Multi-Aspect Enahancements.

Well there is 1 acc/rch for both ranged damage and targeted aoe but there both from the purple sets which wouldn't really help you but, what does that say about acc/rch dual aspects IOs? I wonder.

That's actually another problem. There probably are enough of every kind of enhancement, but they aren't all available in the same level range. In fact, I don't believe the selection is even remotely the same in every level range at all. It's all well and good to plan your builds for level 50, but a lot of people (myself among them) tend to forget that we want good, or at least decent builds all the way to 50, or at least post 20.

Now, I HAVE been talking about increasing complexity, but one way I did NOT want to do it is by instituting radically different slotting options throughout the level ranges, because that would leave people constantly guessing or, much more likely, in a constant state of "can't be arsed."

Basically, if we simply got multi-aspect enhancements of every kind that doesn't cause technical problems available to all powers that can use them at all levels, then I can deal with whatever subsystem they employ. That may sound like a tall order, but remember - I can say this about the current enhancements just fine. We have single-aspect enhancements to enhance all aspects of all powers available at all levels.

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.

*sigh*
You do realise that means I have to respec now, don't you?

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.

If it makes you feel any better, I had to buy my last respec on Bill from the market.

I've used every trial respec. Every veteran respec. Every freebie respec.

And I'll be doing it again with I-17's freebie even though I just did it less than two weeks ago.

Oh, I have respecs coming out of my ears, it's the bother of having to redo my whole build that bugs me, specifically since I'll have to scrounge up three extra slots that I don't remember having to play with.

Oh, if only there were some kind of... Common multi-aspect enhancement. That would make things easier, I bet

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.

Well, here I'm assuming that you are currenly slotting grant cover with, what, endurance reduction? In that case, good news! You do have a multi-aspect enhancement that will work there. Two, in fact:

Cytoskeleton Exposure: 20% Defense / 33% Endredux
Enzyme Exposure: 33% Defense / 33% Endredux

Of course, I'd go with the Enzyme... then two slots give you more enhancement than 3 slots of regular SOs would

Yeah, but that's kind of what bugs me the most - that I'm looking for the existence of specific, named enhancements that do this. One of the reasons I was even entertaining this idea in the first place was so that I could do away with just that. Having JUST ONE enhancement that does this, which I can slot as many times as I want, and ideally get the recipe for out of the University, would be what it takes to make me do my homework on how to use dual-aspects.

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.