Enough with the 95% crap!

1. I don't see how WoW is relevant to the discussion.

2. At least you had a 5% chance to hit them.

3. An intelligent team of 8 level 50s should have no problems handling five death mages.

**** happens.

I wasn't as verbose in my previous posts as I could have been. I was trying to keep it brief. I can see how my comment about Rogues could have been misleading.

This was discussed in the past, actually within the context of drop mechanics back in I9, but its also applicable to tohit. Most of the proposals for doing this *don't* also ask for *hits* to be similarly "normalized" only misses, and the net result is that your actual rate of hits goes way up relative to what they are supposed to.


Do you actually have chat logs that show this behavior, over and over again? Seeing this often, as opposed to the one in a thousand chance its supposed to be, would be evidence of a broken random number generator. So far, every time I've asked for such logs, the problem disappears as soon as the person actually starts logging.

(You can enable chat logging in your options per character and have *everything* basically logged to local log files without having to do anything after that point, and the logs don't really take up significant space relative to the size of the game. This is an effortless way to see if the combat logs back up your perceptions of how often you really are missing.)

Because stuff like this doesn't happen in WoW. And my previous comment about how rare it is to miss in many other MMOs compared to CoX.

Which for all intents and purposes is zero. Unless it was their chance to hit me, cause then they'd hit 5 times in a row.

Two things worked against us. One was that we were in a small cave. Two was that we were bookended on both sides in a tunnel. There was no way to move out of the overlapping PbAoEs and attack at range. The only reason I was able to escape is because I was able to teleport. It wasn't a matter of intelligence. It was literally being trapped in a situation where there was no option but to die because there was literally nothing anyone could do.

I admit it's pretty rare for stuff like this to happen to a team. It's much more likely to happen soloing, where your only option is to run away and wait for them to cycle off the debuffs. Carnies are terrible with this too, between the Dark Servants and their Rings of ******** powers.

My point is this: is it really necessary to have such powerful debuffs? Does it really make the game "better" in some way? If you're resistant to them then they're no big deal and you don't care. If you're not, then it's just pure frustration because there is often nothing to can do to mitigate it. Why on Earth would you willingly want to frustrate your playerbase?

I will do that. Because it happens a lot on low level characters, even with the beginner's luck buff and a few TOs slotted. I'll PM you anything that looks out of the ordinary. Hell, if just turning on the logs makes it go away I'll still be happy LOL!

I'm guessing WoW and most other MMOs don't also have trivial ways to radically improve your chances to hit either. An even acc SO increases net chance to hit by 33.3%. How common is that in WoW? Build Up has +15% increase to tohit and is amplified by Accuracy. Inspirations fall frequently and the smallest of those boosts tohit by 7.5%.

The fact is that CoH has much stronger buffs and debuffs than any other game I've seen, and allow them to stack much more strongly than in any other game I've seen, and that works both for and against the players when it appears.

Way back when, I used to hunt the Rikti Crash Site (long before it became the RWZ) with my MA/SR scrapper, and one of the things I used to hear is that a lot of people didn't like to do that because of all the Paragon Protectors, many of which go MoG. It took me a bit of time to realize that what I was seeing was not what many others were seeing because I was two-slotted for accuracy (this was pre-ED, mind you) and ran focused accuracy. MoG was flooring other people, but not me, because I had "grown up" under perma-Elude and the old school I2 days of fighting +5s and even higher on teams, so I built for a lot of accuracy so I could hit things. MoGed PPs were hittable for me.

That's part of the options this game gives you. You can choose to expend effort dealing more damage per hit, or you can choose to expend effort becoming more accurate with each attack. In a game where everyone hits everything all the time, that choice is gone. Its a choice many players don't want, but others do. For the choice to become a very accurate hero (or villain) to be valid, there have to be things that are hard to hit.

Also, although its debatable whether the devs went too far in many cases, the very strong buffs and debuffs in this game are also there to provide players with stronger (as in more distinguished) choices in powers to use. If CoH was a game where the "base" performance was pretty high, and all modifiers to that base performance were fairly low, buffs and debuffs would be a lot less interesting. Tell someone in WoW you have armor that provides 6% better tohit, and that might mean something. Tell that to a CoH player, and they'll look at you funny. Because 6% benefit is considered small in CoH. It means you're going to hit about 6% more often (depending on the kind of buff it is). In CoH, I can buff myself from 75% chance tohit to 95% chance to hit with slotting, which is an increase in effective damage of 27% (95/75). Its a dramatic difference if I choose to slot my powers that way, so most people do. Giving up that flavor just so people can hit (almost) all the time is not something to do lightly.

I've oddly solved more people's accuracy problems that way than any other.

Also, its very unlikely at this point that there exists a flaw in the random number generator for the tohit system, as its been checked and double checked many times over the years. But its not impossible, and there have been random number generator errors in other places in the game. So an actual record of tohit oddities would be useful if an actual oddity occurs, because at this point the devs are unlikely to investigate a problem without evidence. They will, if there is evidence to support the problem, and the chat logs are the easiest way to have those always available if a problem occurs.

It's almost a philosophical debate. In CoX the base is set low with the expectation that you're going to drastically improve certain attributes. In WoW and other games like it, the base is set high and attribute improvement is focused only in a few key places depending upon class.

Now one might say that extra flexibility in CoX is a good thing, but at the same time once the most optimized slotting ratio is met you rarely ever deviate from it. For example, most people are going to slot their attacks the exact same way -- 2 accy, 3 damage, 1 end redux (or perhaps 1 accy, 3 damage, 1 end, 1 recharge). If they're collecting IO buffs they'll use very specific sets with the same types of enhancements in order to get maximized accuracy, damage, recharge, and end reduction in addition to the set bonus.

So really, while one has the ability to enhance you character to be more accurate or to do more damage I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most people not only do both, but also strive to recharge faster and use as little endurance as possible. When we're all working towards the exact same set of stats then there really isn't any flexibility left.

It's the same argument that comes up every time Castle re-homogenizes a set. Instead of providing opportunities to have different and creative builds we all wind up having the same powers slotted the same way. When I first started playing CoX it was very common to take pool powers. Yes, you'll always go for Fitness and a travel power. But sometimes you'd take Acrobatics. Sometimes Leadership or Medicine. Sometimes even Concealment, Fighting, or just adding in Combat Jumping, Hurdle, Recall Friend, etc. But that flexibility is all but gone, mostly because so many powers have been trivialized. We're no longer able to skip 3-4 powers in a set like we used to and pool powers provide so little benefit versus the sacrifice required to take and use them. Flexibility is an illusion in CoX. Castle himself has said he wants building your character to be painful. Really? Again I ask, what purpose does it serve to frustrate your playerbase? Especially when your competition doesn't.

link please.

i beg to differ. you can skip as many powers as you want.

i stick by what i said earlier about you needing to go play another game. if missing 1 in 20 times pisses you off that much, then stop playing. i know it sounds harsh, but if you can't handle it....

i have had times where i have gone through entire missions without missing once. then i have times where i go through and it seems like that is all i am doing. that is because no one remembers the hits, just the misses. and when you miss, that is all you look for. stop trying to make a mountain out of a non exsistant mole hill on concrete. it doesn't work all that well.

If 5% to hit is "for all intents and purposes zero" then a 5% chance to miss should equate to the same thing: practically nothing. And if they only have a 5% hit rate against you, not only can they not hit you 5 times in a row but they can't hit you even twice in a row, due to streakbreaker. All of this is just your perception of luck. It can be annoying, and it can also be really handy. Our human brains only focus on the bad luck though.

Also, I'm almost completely certain that no two creatures from a single spawn will run the same toggles at once -- I'm practically 100% sure they're coded so they don't all run painful toggles like these at the same time and create situations like you're describing. So either those Death Mages were from different spawns, or they weren't running their toggles all at the same time like you say.

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

Not *bad* powers per se, but powers that weren't always necessary to take. Optional.

For example, lets go waaaay back to pre-ED days. My main was an INV/SS tank. I was able to skip both the energy and elemental passives along with tough hide and unstoppable because I really didn't need them. I frequently had about 115% defense while fighting and capped out S/L resistance. So I was able to customize my build with all sorts of pool powers to give it some flavor.

After ED and GDN things were very different. With resistances and defenses cut to a fraction of what they used to be I could no longer afford to skip anything. So now I needed the 3 passives and Unstoppable. 4 extra powers and I was still less than half as mighty as I was. There went all those flavor powers. And it pretty much guarantees that all INV tanks will have the exact same powers. There is nothing that is optional anymore.

Yeah, there was just a tad bit of sarcasm left in there from the last time I played my MA/SR scrapper with 55% defense who was killed after being hit 3x in a row from an Arachnos Bane.

Hmmm, this I don't know. I do recall the devs limiting sappers to one per spawn and something about stopping a single minion from perma-mezzing you to death. Never heard of the toggle limit. I do know it was more than one spawn last night with the Death Mages cause we had one in front of us and one behind us.

I'm pretty sure I've had multiple Spectral Lords with stacked Chill of the Nights running. I'll have to pay more attention in the future.

I'm sure it's long been purged. I think it was around I13, around when Shields came out and a few sets like Invulnerability were getting a pass.

People were complaining how he was adding useful abilities to unpopular powers in order to dissuade people from skipping them (for example, putting defense debuff and slow resistance in Grant Cover, a power that most people deemed otherwise skippable). His response was that he wanted every power to be useful and desirable, and that building your characters should be painful and rife with difficult decisions.

I'll see if I can find the post, but don't get your hopes up.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

Which is why I made this suggestion.

Want 100% tohit? Sure, but it's gonna cost you. Take powers that'll buff your tohit, or use IO bonuses that could be sunk into +dam or -rech, or team with friends that deal +tohit and -def rather than +dmg and -res.

It's a choice. A choice that, to me, is denied. A choice I want.

Untrue. Streakbreaker only applies to misses.

If only I could somehow distance myself from real life. I'm told there's this new invention that enables it. Something like vee-d-ya games.

So your problem isn't the 95% hardcap on final tohit, it's the base accuracy?

What? No! This is, and always has been, about the end to-hit.

Then I don't get what you're saying there. You can't get 100% tohit. Are proposing that you allow the tohit to be 100% but have a ridiculous cost to obtain it?

Yup. The "ridiculous cost" being a diminishing returns that kicks in after 95% total tohit, meaning you have to hit 120% to be at 100%. Or 155%. Or whatever it ends up being. Sure, you can hit that by three-slotting accuracy, against most enemies at least, but that means you have to triple-SO accuracy, and not everybody does that. Again, choice.

Or you hit with a few rad blasts that stack -defense.

It'd need to be something greater than 200%. Accuracy, -defense, and tohit are just far too easy to come by to come up with some meaningful cost here. My warshade can easily stack himself with over +50% tohit. Right there I'm at 125% chance to hit. Put in the standard acc multipliers and I'm over 150%. I have a ton of accuracy bonuses by accident which will end up with my final tohit at or near 200%. All on my own, and mostly by accident.

The 95% cap needs to be there, much as the 5% floor. If you take one away, the other no longer makes sense. We can't have characters with 50% defense becoming perfectly invulnerable.

Face facts: Everyone gets lucky. I don't care how good he is, I'm going to still have that chance to land a lucky blow. I don't care how good I am, that guy has a chance get out of the way in time. This is a comic book game, and the improbable happens all the time in comics.