What can the other secondaries do better than /Shield?

But random guessing is so fun, especially when people are giving cryptic hints

Hmm, let's see, something that could be perceived as a critter power level increase, is a fairly obscure mechanic change, possibly related to survivability but not necessarily in an obvious way, and possibly exploitable in some way. I do love a good riddle.

Well, the only critter power level changes that come to mind are Malta getting "buffed", but IIRC that was really just an AI script bug fix. The obvious example is the Titans not using their ranged attacks up close. They always had those nasty attacks, but very rarely used them, so they seemed easy. That's not how they were intended to operate, and the devs fixed it.

BP Totems do seem more dangerous now -- they used to be a complete pushover. I don't have any hard evidence on that one, just perception which may be flawed, but I suspect it was a similar issue (not using all of their powers).

That seems much too straightforward to be the answer we're looking for, however. And it was discussed on the forums a bit, which rules it out.

As far as game mechanics that are possibly exploitable and related to survival... Hmm... A while back there was a change in the way powers that were in the process of activating when a critter is mezzed / defeated are handled. Originally I recall being able to hold an enemy that was in the middle of animating say, Hurl Boulder, and have the enemy power be effectively interrupted and not go off. Ditto for defeating them mid-cast. A few issues back in (curse my memory, I need to start taking notes of these things), there was an undocumented change so that in BOTH these cases, the power would successfully activate and deal damage. For a while, this caused some amusing "double KO" scenarios where a critter would defeat you after you had defeated it.

The defeated case was reverted at some point after that, so now on live, if you defeat an enemy mid-cast, the cast still fully animates but does no damage. They still do damage if you mez them mid-cast, however, which might be perceived as a nerf to control sets. I'm not sure this is what you're talking about, however. The defeated case was discussed, but I don't recall the mez change drawing attention.

The only other readily exploitable mechanic I can think of is the rooting mechanism. That's well-known, though, and as far as I know there haven't been any changes to it. Well, I know don't if "well-known" is the right word, since many people exploit it without even knowing that they are, by jumping up from behind cover with a power queued, or using momentum to carry you out of range of an enemy during the activation time.

There's still a bug somewhere in the animation priorities that occasionally causes you not to root when you should. I haven't narrowed down which animation it is that's the culprit.

Well, snapping my fingers takes only about one second, so it wouldn't set the devs back very far (I said "if I could snap my fingers...").

On a more serious level, replacing the current implementation tools cold-turkey would be disruptive. But in situations like this, the best way to phase them in is to design the new tools to interoperate with the old ones, and supplement them. That's possible, and in fact in a certain sense that exists now, just in a very unofficial and unconventional way.


I disagree in two senses: I disagree they would constantly fiddle without some really strong cause, and I disagree that implementing a reasonably balanced game is a hopeless cause. It just requires the right numerical approach. Unfortunately, the only way to demonstrate that thesis would be to actually implement an entire game system with that philosophy and demonstrate that there is such a thing as good enough in balance terms, and that it has a reasonable chance of being reachable in a real live implementation. At the moment, there isn't one I can point to, unfortunately.


This presumes balance is synonymous with equality. Nothing could be further from the truth. Real game balance supports a greater amount of diversity than imbalance does, because real game balance allows you to hit what you aim for. The reason this is not obvious is that the real cost to being unable to balance effectively is that an entire range of possibilities is simply never attempted, because they cannot be controlled. There is an entire shadow of our game that would theoretically work just fine, but you and I will never see. We can only guess at what that loss actually is, but consider this: the cost in time and resources to bring just the defense sets from where they were at launch to where they were in I5 was quite possibly comparable to the effort required to add all the defense sets added to the game since that time. We could have had those *then* and an entirely new set of things now.

Now, as to the issue of whether good game balance requires exact equality, I bring you Exhibit One:



This game should be required study for every games design program on Earth. It should also be required study for every person that wants to claim that reasonable game balance is impossible without making everything identical.

According to a lot of MMO players out there, this game is an impossibility: an asymmetric, balanced game (in fact, an asymmetric balanced *PvP* game).


When I was in Seattle a few years ago I went to the museum of glass. On the wall was a quote that summarizes my thoughts on this perfectly. I'm going from memory, but I believe this is an exact quote:

There is no art without craftsmanship, and no craft without artistry.


In my mind, talking about the numbers in an MMO as if they were something separate from and less important than the "art" of the MMO is like saying there's no need to practice the piano when throwing bowling balls at the keyboard is just as artistic and equally acceptable.

Yeah...I think I broke sometime around the combo killer that was 4am, someone telling Castle how bad he was at his job and, to top it odd, someone basically trying to insult Arcana...
I mean....Aracanaville? The devs themselves even use the phrase 'Arcanatime' for pete sake! Thats like...like...messing with someone I dont actually have a parallel for!

(And before anyone shouts fanboi/devpet, etc, make sure you read up on the ongoing rants in the art/revamp camp fan I am, gloryboy I ain't.)

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

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

While better design tools is always a great thing, I am of the opinion that we get fewer new powersets more because of art resources than power design resource issues.

We get fewer proliferated powersets due to designer preference/bias and possibly marketing issues.

I'm sorry to break it to you, but this sort of thing really only matters to a small percentage if the player base. Most people don't bother with 'putting serious effort into making something superior'. Top level powergamers who only want to best performance out of their toons are a minor subculture in any game.

So, 'detrimental to the health of the game' is a bit overstating, especially since the general trend over the past few years has been to buff sets and AT's as opossed to the 'nerfing' you guys are perceiving. It is, look at it with an unbiased mind.

Also bringing a power down from a level of performance it was never intended to have is more of a bug fix than a 'nerf' though that'll probably be pure semantics to most of you.

Of course. The things that I care about won't be what most people care about. You weren't responding to me, but it was kind of responding to my "argument". I'm just saying why I personally dislike this change. I am not suggesting that balance isn't important too, or that games should only buff instead of nerf. I'm just saying why I'm unhappy. Sounds like some other powergamers are unhappy for similar reasons. We are of course a minority. But that doesn't then imply that the majority like nerfs to their favorite powers, even when the REASON it's a favorite power turns out to be that the power is bugged.

Yes, the general trend over the past few years has been significant buffing. That doesn't make me happy either. I like challenge, and I don't like change. Buffing reduces challenge and adds change. At least they added the difficulty slider so that the game isn't even more of a cakewalk as a result. I think that +4x8 at current power levels is harder than invincible at the old power levels. So at least there's that.

For that matter, think of what I'm doing. I'll play +4x8. I'll do certain difficult fights without inspirations. I used to run a character on invincible with all toggles off. I nerf myself or buff the bad guys all the time. I'm not upset by nerfs from a "oh noes I is weak now!" perspective.

It is indeed pure semantics to me. My in game experience will be the same whether the devs originally intended this power level, then changed their minds ("nerf"), or if it was a mistake, and now they're fixing it ("bug fix"). What someone else INTENDED doesn't change what IS, and doesn't alter my in-game experience in the slightest.

"Not working as intended" is an irrelevant factoid, an invalid reason to make a change. You make a change because you believe the game will be better overall if you make that change. You might argue, for instance, that the displeasure of all of the people with lesser nukes greatly outweighs the pleasure of the people with this one better nuke, and that overall satisfaction with the game will therefore go up if Shield Charge is adjusted downwards. Quite possibly true, and even if not, it was still a good line of reasoning to consider, a good argument. "Oops" is not an argument.

Sounds like one-shot code or purple patch based on the hint. Can't possibly be that easy though can it?

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

True. And I don't think anyone is suggesting otherwise, not even the person you quoted. Then again this game isn't really like any other game now is it? This game is promoted as super casual, which shifts the definition of "putting serious effort..." down quite a few notches from how it is typically perceived.

$100M might be "serious effort" to a lot of people. Changes that alter that investment can be fairly devastating to that player because for them the game is really loose and they probably won't understand why they are being shifted, just that they are being shifted and their hard work has been (at worst) invalidated.

On a similar but different tangent, top level powergamers (as you are defining them) will just adjust and move on to the next phase of power gaming. It is the late adopters that strive to achieve what the bleeding edge min-maxers pump out in no time that end up being hurt the most. They get cut off at the knees because changes always seem to take 2 years+ to happen at which point even the tortoise has leveled it up and pimped it out if they were attracted to the powers in question. At which point the powergamers have already busted through the ceiling with the next combo and the slow adopters start chasing them all over again...just to get cut down when they finally achieve it.

All legitimate reasons aside these fixes just come too slow. No one in their right mind is asking for perfection, or even rapid attention to issues as desirable as the latter would be. But the speed they are happening now is just too slow.

This thread is a perfect example. Castle has become aware that SC is retardedly overpowered. But we won't be getting a fix for months and months and months (maybe a year or more). There are a ton of valid reasons on why the fix will take so long too, but that still doesn't make the delay acceptable. A system that takes year(s) to fix an identified problem (that they have the tech to solve) is not a very good system.

I have no delusions about magical speed/efficiency increases happening overnight, so a bandaid solution is to implement weekly GMotD that informs players of known issues. SC is now a known issue and anyone playing, or about to be playing the set has a right to know about it.

First off, I wonder what their original 'design tools' were, they must have had some method to their madness. The problem with 'phasing in' new tools is that you could create new imbalances that were bigger than the original imbalance if the new standards don't mesh with the old ones.

You talk of assymetric balance, and I think this game has that. Energy melee, for example, WAS assymetrically balanced in that it did ridiculously good single target damage vs ridiculously bad aoe capabilities (though I would argue it was actually, overall, underpowered due to the value of aoe vs single target capabilities), while other competing sets were more symetrically balanced. Energy Transfer was ridiculously good but it was balanced by the fact the rest of the set was pretty ridiculously bad. Then castle came in with his new balance equation and busted em down to single target capabilities that are on par with several competing sets, while still being ridiculoulsy underpowered in the aoe department, specifically in comparison to some of the sets that now were on par with em in single target strength. Instead of a set with one great redeeming power, em was left with a set of mediocre to poor powers. Phasing in his new design tool left em an underperforming, underplayed mess.


It's human nature, imo, to fiddle with things, especially ones own creation. Most people don't settle for 'good enough' even if what they have is working fine and getting the job done.

And if you support the assymetrical balance, then some things will seem better than others to players, players will complain, and you'll end up with situations like this, or like the situation with EM, where devs would feel compelled to react to player outcries.

But ultimately, I just don't feel the perfect set of design tools and/or design equation exists, without dumbing the game down to ridiculous levels. I don't think humanity is capable of creating some flawless design that would never run into an unforseen problem and not require tweaking down the road.


To be fair, a lot of what was accomplished from the start of this game to now REQUIRED trial and error. New games can draw from what they've learned from older games, but unless their games utilize the exact same mechanics, they too will go through a trial and error learning process because nothing we make is flawless.

If you look at some of my posts you'll see I've argued against many people who seem opposed to this type of balancing.

I think some sets are getting wrecked because they're balanced with 'ogres'. People see the ogre and immediately assume the set is overpowered without realizing other sets are just as good, they simply use a nice mix of infantry and missile tanks. Just because a set's strength is more obvious if it lies in one or two powers does not necessarily mean the set is overpowered. I think this is especially true with what happened with energy melee.





Which is why I implied a nice mix of artistry and craftmanship is important, and that I felt this game has that, which is probably why I like it so much.

OK, ok, I'd like to recant my 'devpet' statement, lol. It's not fair to label anyone that, everyone is entitled to their own opinions.

This. And this should be the first and most important question the devs should answer before making any change to the game. Does the change improve the game, and why.

From my standpoint, this change will make the game less fun for me. My SD has given me one of my favorite toons to use when I feel like going on an all out offensive. Cutting it's best attack to 1/2 damage will probably ruin that toon for me and take away one of the options in the game I enjoy. It also makes me feel like I wasted a lot of time and effort to build it to where it's at, and makes me less confident in building up new toons. I'm certain may people who have SD's will feel the same way.

And having an SD hasn't had any negative effect on the game for me. It hasn't caused me not to play other powersets or at's and I still have several other toons that I rank at the same level as my SD that are better at some things and worse at others.

I think I could understand those who support the nerf better if they could explain how SC is specifically hurting the game for them, in terms of their gaming experience.

So why be so concerned about the performance of a 'minor subculture'?

And the buffs worked wonders for underplayed powersets, while the nerfs in recent years have led to underplayed powersets. We're all talking about FA needing a buff after getting blugeoned by the nerf bat. So nerfs do seem to be detrimental to the health of any powerset that is hit by them, at least recently. If you start affecting the health of too many powersets, sooner or later that will affect the health of the game overall.

I'd agree if it were caught in beta, or within a few months after release. But after a year and a half, and after being improved between then and now, I think it's pretty fair for players to expect the powers setting to be correct, not a bug. But yeah, whatever you call it is semantics, the bottom line is, the most popular power in the set could end up getting cut in half. That is a significant downgrade from what players have become accustomed to in the past 1.5 years.

On the one hand, the devs do have to take into account things that have been in game for awhile, and live with them because of what you are stating here (Castle has stated as much with certain game systems, like the def cap level being the same for all ATs).

At the same time, it would be completely irresponsible for any developer to be ignorant of game balance and how all the powersets play. You can have fun and be ignorant on your own, because you're only really responsible for yourself. Not working as intended is not an irrelevant factoid when you do have an overall system that affects the experience of large amounts of people.

So, I dunno. Not sure how realistic your expectations are, and how that's going to work out for you with all this.

I'll take a stab at this one and why SC bothers me even though I have two Shield toons (dm/shield brute, and bs/shield scrap).

I support the nerf to SC for several reasons.
1. It was never implemented as it was designed by Castle. No idea why that happened, or why it went live like that, but it did. As a result it is considerably better than L-rod in every way which is a no-no because it is a secondary power and L-rod is a primary power.

2. By comparison it makes my Fire armor toons feel inadequate. Yes they are jealous of Shield users, my own included. Teams throw around a lot of defense buffs, which benefit my mildly build shielder more than my FA and because Shield's offense scales better to team buffs (particularly recharge) than fire's offensive powers the disparity becomes larger and larger.

3. My blasters feel invalidated by Shield Charge. The current values of scrapper SC blow every blaster nuke out of the water with the exception of Rain of Arrows. I don't have a single blaster (other than arch) that wouldn't happily trade its t9 for SC. In fact the first time I used SC I said to myself "this is a blaster power" because of the huge radius, higher than any other scrapper power target cap and spammability of the power.

4. I think they are trivializing team content too much. It is sort of "oh watch the shielder decimate entire spawns while we follow and pocket buff him". It detracts from the "fun" and contribution that other toons are there to make. An arch blaster can do similar but at least they usually need heavy support, a shielder with even a little bit of buffing gains "enough" survivability to basically become a tankmage. Additionally, while an arch blaster can wipe entire spawns it is much more subtle, SC is front and center and kabooms the entire screen. Like many things in this game the tangibility of the power plays are large part in how it is perceived.

5. My position on the timing of this nerf and the progression of mistakes that have put us in this situation have been documented in previous posts. Suffice to say, it isn't positive. In fact, I think it should be hotfixed down to the original 133 damage value immediately. At which point if Castle frees up some spare time many months down the road like he said he can rework the power to how it is "intended" to be. That way the reworking won't be nearly as harsh and the current issue of it being ridiculously OP'd is placated.

No, I'd argue that "not working as intended" is STILL an irrelevant factoid.

"Not balanced against similar powers" is the relevant fact here, even if the two may go hand in hand in this case, as Castle almost certainly intended that Shield Charge be balanced against similar powers based on his reaction. Balance, in general, is to be sought after, as it promotes diversity and decreases power envy. Diversity is good. Avoiding as much power envy as is practical is good, except to the extent that it makes people want to level up new characters ("Hey! That looks FUN!).

See Frosticus for some other valid reasons for supporting a nerf. I still say "oops" is not a valid reason.

Sadly it would look exactly like FF11. very popular in asia its about large groups of people beating up one monster at a time. You need the perfect combination of toons and subjobs to get decent rewards and if you die you can lose levels.

Also you have spawn campers, a terrible time zone constraints and an elitist group of d-bags pretty much running the game. You can get the elitist crap from Repeat Offenders, you dont even need to switch games , but theyre a minority and run nothing.

You are taking two separate statements about different things. Nerfing shield charge nerfs the benefits derived from the skill it took to plan out and acquire the material to make a good shield defense character.

Every point of data on a trendline need not conform to the line for the trend to be valid. Khan is the perfect example giant reservoir of hitpoints that much of the team can set an autofire and go afk for predictable amounts of time. ( I have done that even on masters of)

The only skill involved in those events is picking a server with a large population.

i can tell you this. Aoe has very little impact vs a boss. Its useful against minions and slightly less useful vs Lts. This is from playing the game since I2 with the caveat that i dont fight malta, koa or low level cot and single player.

Sure, 7-8 people throwing a fireball will make a dent in a boss and demolish a spawn , but shouldnt it? that is the value of teamwork. I guarantee that a spawn throwing just basic attacks at one toon will do a number on anything but amrored At's

Theres plenty of games out there that DEMAND, not just ask but DEMAND that you take your team against one mobile. This game is the only one ive seen that goes with the idea that 1 player is more or less = to 3 minions.

(i played wow and have heard stories, ive seen FF11 played and heard stories, so Cox still is more aoe centric)

We are an elitist group that will accept anyone? Please explain.

Hey RO took me in at one time and if I can get in anyone can get in, jk!

It has to be. Even for the three minion case, the player needs that their combat effectiveness be roughly 9 times that of the minion. For a spawn of 8 its up 64 times that of the spawn element. AoE as its currently implemented scales with the size of the spawn. This is a good thing if you had the situation where it capped at lower numbers or just became less effective by hitting more targets you would have situations where the addition of one or two enemies would turn spawns from manageable to completely impossible.

Just an aside, Ogre is probably about the easiest type of game to balance. Its a straight application of Lanchester's laws, and its the type of thing that had been done in Strategy and Tactics for every issue.

Meh. I have a damn good SD character. Took me 1-2 hours to design. It just tooks the skill to download Mids and plug in different IO's until I got the numbers I wanted.

It doesn't take "skill" to acquire the IO's or other "materials" needed, just patience.

Yes, you're absolutely right. A mistake like this is "unacceptable", that it took them this long to notice it, despite numerous player comments over time, even more so. And it should get fixed asap, because leaving it in the game for another 6 months will only add insult to injury. My best guess as to why it isn't going to be fixed is that there simply isn't going to be any time to make the change, get it into a patch and on test before the test servers get occupied by the GR beta.

What I wanted to do with my post was to react against all those posters in this nerdrage fuelled threadnaught who seem to throw overboard every last bit of common sense they had and start insulting the devs, call everyone who dissagree with them a 'devpet/fanboy' and then start decrying 'the end of the game' (tm) because of all the nerfage being thrown around. And they do it every single time something like this happens. Just gets on my nerves's all.

I'm actually pleasantly surprised to get some decent replies like yours and Werners. I was expecting to log in today and find my rep well in the red with some amusing comments for me to read.

Noone is concerned over the performance of a 'minor subculture' least of all me. That's not even remotely the problem. SC is vastly overpower for everyone.

Underplayed powersets because of nerfs? The only one I can think of that even remotly fits that description is Energy Melee, and the problem there is that they changed the feel of the powerset, instead of just the numbers. New players don't notice anything wrong with EM.

Overpowered sets that draw all the players towards them(like EM did, and SC does now to a lesser degree)because they clearly perform better than others, are far more detrimental to the game.

Yes, it shouldn't have happened. But it did, and leaving it as is, is NOT the solution.