Reposting from I19 Beta threads

I agree, it is probably easier to just put you back in Hide than to change a timer on a single power.

OTOH, the suppression effect on Hide is probably pretty complicated as it is. It may be separate from Hide itself. And it can be altered, it is different from the suppression time on Stealth. So maybe that rehide time can be coded to take into account team size instead of just being a constant. That's a lot of assumptions, though.

If you have a 30% chance of rehide every second, though, that's 30% within the first second, 51% the second second, 65.7% the third second, 75.99% the fourth second, 83.193% the fifth second, and 88.2351% the sixth second. That's just over a 3/4 chance at four seconds. That should be enough to, if not duplicate Shadestorm's suggestion, at least come somewhat close to it. (Assuming my calculations are correct, of course)

Also, it occurs to me that every time you are hit, the Hide is broken, and so the "chain" of rehide checks starts over again at 30%. So while it might be possible to build up to a 65% chance of rehide during a very long attack, it's more likely you'll have a 30% or less chance.

Honestly, I think it will come out very close to the percentages we have right now. With the potential for alteration of the range to allies, of course.

It's been two and a half years since scaling criticals went in! If they haven't datamined its effectiveness by now, do you honestly think they are still at it? It's not that I want to be the voice of doom and gloom but at this late date, when Castle tells me they think they have made Stalkers as strong as they want to make them, I believe them. Not that *I* believe Stalkers are strong enough, mind... just that THEY believe it.

I don't know how far back you are reading to come up with this conclusion, but I have in the past pointed out that I think it is mostly melee allies that DO account for the scaling crit we CURRENTLY have (and have had since 05/2008). I'm not saying I want it to be that way. That's just pretty much how it is. These are the folks who are most likely to be within 30ft of you. It's a generalization of course. There are always exceptions.

You are assuming that the current scaling crit along with all the rest of the post-i12 Stalker changes are not performing as well as they want them to. Castle's post seems to indicate that they are happy with all that and only believe Stalkers underperform due to issues outside the design of the Stalker. Obviously there are two ways to address that: Change the Stalker (again) or change the system. It would seem to be easier to change the Stalker but Castle's post seems pretty clear on this point. They would consider changing the system. And that's where I read between the lines, "but the system is so hard to change don't hold your breath."

Or, maybe the datamining has revealed that the problem is not as bad as you think it is. Maybe the scaling Criticals are working just fine on a large enough team, but aren't doing enough to compensate for the aggro issues on smaller teams.

If it is not because melee allies are the ones most likely to be within 30 feet of you, then why IS the radius of the effect only 30 feet? Why isn't it 60 feet? Why isn't it 100 feet?

I'm not actually assuming that at all, merely pointing at that feature as a way to expand the tweaks that were made to compensate the Stalker for the issues outside of its design, in order to better achieve that goal. If a Stalker cannot get a Crit because a teammate has given him shared aggro, then it seems logical that that teammate was given the ability to increase the Stalker's chance to Crit to compensate. The two are not unrelated.

The small radius of the Crit chance calculation, as well as fact that an Assassin Strike does not apply the demoralize effect on defeat have been given as examples of limitations of these tweaks. You either assume that Castle intended these limitations from the start, with no specific confirmation of this assumption, or you assume the limitations are somehow introduced by the system. If the latter, then there is room for discussion. Particularly since this thread owes its existance to discussion.

I like this idea, because despite what this thread shows, scrappers are really jealous of stalkers ability to control their crits with placate. It gives the archtype a tactical feel you can't pick up with any other melee.

I wouldn't think the devs always know exactly what to look for in their datamined storages. Otherwise it wouldn't have taken them even longer to change Domination from i6 up until just a year and a half ago.

And it's arguable if they actually made Doms 'stronger' with the removal of the damage buff from domination. They basically just normalized the high-end with the normal-end of the AT's performance.

Basically 'at this late date' doesn't mean anything. They're always looking to add, balance and rebalance their game. While I'm perfectly fine with the effectiveness of our scaling crits, that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement to normalize the high-end with the normal-end. Kind of the same with dominators; I was quite okay with the Jekyll/Hyde duality of the AT and so were the devs.

Wouldn't it be easier for the game to check every so often and just have a flat chance to re-hide based on each team-mate in range.

For instance; every 2 seconds the game checks for teammates in range and rolls a 25% chance per teammate to re-hide the stalker. On an 8-man team that would put you at around 87% chance to re-hide each 2-second check (if you roll the chance per teammate). I honestly don't know what would be easier for the game engine, but my instinct tells me that forcing a re-hide based on team-mates within 30ft would be easier than trying to force a recharge enhancement of going back into hiding.

Thoughts ?

Besides, it sounds like the issues Castle is talking about are situational, not consistent. Stalkers are certainly better off now than they were before the changes. But that may be as far as a constant, consistent buff can be taken to address a problem that is really bad when it shows up, but doesn't show up that often.

Then again, Going Rogue certainly seems to be putting Stalkers in situations lately where those systemic problems are getting worse. That would not show up in any datamining prior to the release of GR.

Well, I think that's the point. Dominators weren't made "better" in all situations, they were just changed so that the few Power Sets and tight builds that allowed them to be successful before were no longer necessary for that success. Some power at the "high end" was lost, yes. The Brute changes were similar, a drop in max Fury, accompanied by an increase in minimum Fury. So was the change to Defiance. In many cases, we can demonstrate where the devs have nerfed an extremely narrow, extremely powerful buff to an AT, and made it less powerful but more consistent.

When Castle says, "Stalkers are about as strong as we want them to be", I think he just means that he doesn't want this high end performance to get any better. But that doesn't mean the buff can't be tweaked to apply more of its bonus at the low end.