You cannot use this power on yourself
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-11-17 24:26 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
The idea as I understand it is that if you could use such buffs on yourself they'd be too powerful. Self buffs like Accelerated Metabolism or Unyielding tend to be either weaker or come with a crash, compared to buffs on others like ally Force Field bubbles.
Arc #40529 : The Furies of the Earth
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Well, a search should have turned up a number of threads on this, but maybe not with phrasing quite like this. Most of the time, they're calls to make those buffs PBAoE, or other such suggestion.|
Originally Posted by seebs
I find it strongly anti-compelling when a buff set has powers that you can't use on yourself, only on teammates. I do a fair bit of soloing, so such a set at least gives the impression of being a very poor choice.
What's the rationale behind power designs that rely on this? I never quite got it. |
However, the reason is because they are actually really good buffs, and giving them the ability to self-apply would be fairly game-breaking.
Take a Force Field Defender, for instance. Deflection and Insulation shield both give 15% Defense base, and Dispersion Bubble adds another 10% to that. 25% * 1.56 = 39% Defense to most types of damage. An SR Scrapper, on the other hand, gets only 30.47% Defense to the positional types. However, the scrapper can't also buff up everyone else on the team to those same levels.
If you're a soloer, then yes, these sets aren't that attractive. They're not meant to be. However, on a team, they can become huge.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
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"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
I find that they are geared that way to promote teamwork which is a double edged sword, especially for those ATs that struggle solo. My Kinetic Defender can turn a slow, low damage Granite Tank into a fast, unstoppable arresting machine, in return for which he makes sure I don't get my head pounded into the pavement. Give and take as they say.
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My problem with this argument has always been two things. First off the Scrapper has significantly higher offense than the Defender. Secondly the limitation is notably absent from newer sets. Traps in particular is a notable offender providing noticeably more personal defense than FF and a much better array of secondary effects.|
Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
Take a Force Field Defender, for instance. Deflection and Insulation shield both give 15% Defense base, and Dispersion Bubble adds another 10% to that. 25% * 1.56 = 39% Defense to most types of damage. An SR Scrapper, on the other hand, gets only 30.47% Defense to the positional types. However, the scrapper can't also buff up everyone else on the team to those same levels.
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I really don't consider the ability to buff the team to be powerful enough to justify the solo weakness of the set. Other sets (Traps and Cold Domination) can provide sufficient defensive capabilities (both Defense and other mitigation) and add more offensively.
I'm sort of wondering whether it might be smoother if the buffs were slightly weaker, but could be used on self also. As is, the sets with a lot of ally-only powers end up being effectively unavailable to me, since I rely on soloing a fair bit of the time. So they look really fun, but I can't actually make a playable character using them. Or at least, not one that will be as viable as a character using one of the sets that affects self also.
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Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
My problem with this argument has always been two things. First off the Scrapper has significantly higher offense than the Defender. Secondly the limitation is notably absent from newer sets. Traps in particular is a notable offender providing noticeably more personal defense than FF and a much better array of secondary effects.
I really don't consider the ability to buff the team to be powerful enough to justify the solo weakness of the set. Other sets (Traps and Cold Domination) can provide sufficient defensive capabilities (both Defense and other mitigation) and add more offensively. |
Well, in terms of raw protection from only those three powers, yes, the Scrapper would have the edge. However, whereas the Scrapper needs to take 6 powers to get to that level, the Defender would only need to take 3. And again, that's not counting the fact that the Defender would then be able to give that same protection level to everyone else on the team, too. The Defender also would have 6 other powers in the set that can help him out, too.
As opposed to other Defender sets, that may be where it needs to be looked at, but I don't think it needs major changes to things like Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield to be able to cast them on self. I mean, Force Field does have one of the best self Def buffs in the game. However, it does make it so that you can't attack. However, it also has a Ranged PBAoE attack, a single-target high KB power to keep mobs away, and two powers that keep mobs out of melee range, which can help your survivability. So let's not forget those.
However, you are right that it offers little in terms of helping out others on your team to do damage, or to help your secondary (for Defenders) to do more damage. I think that to fix that you could add a secondary effect to either Repulsion Field or Force Bubble, since they largely overlap in function (and if it's working right, shouldn't Force Bubble keep mobs out of range of Repulsion Field anyways? Maybe a -Res effect on mobs affected by Repulsion Field, or even a stun effect if the goal is more survivability?
Edit ->
Oh, and Adeon, I'm not saying that I think the sets are completely balanced as they are right now. They might be, and they might not be. I'm just saying that allowing the ally-only buffs to be able to effect self isn't exactly a great way to balance the sets, it just throws the pendulum far back the other way.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
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Well, if that's the case, then you're basically asking to nerf some sets' effectiveness on a team just because you can't use them to solo as well. Some people like to play buffing sets. Why shouldn't there be a few of those in the game?
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Originally Posted by seebs
I'm sort of wondering whether it might be smoother if the buffs were slightly weaker, but could be used on self also. As is, the sets with a lot of ally-only powers end up being effectively unavailable to me, since I rely on soloing a fair bit of the time. So they look really fun, but I can't actually make a playable character using them. Or at least, not one that will be as viable as a character using one of the sets that affects self also.
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Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
Honestly, if you don't find it compelling to play a set.... don't. Some people enjoy them exactly as they are.
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Yeah, to be honest I don't think making all of them affect the caster is the best way to balance the sets, I think it would bring the sets into closer balance but it's not a great solution. In the particular case of FF it would make the FF tougher allowing them to solo larger groups if they wanted but wouldn't really increase their speed. The GR Tanker Bruising buff is a good example of the inverse, my understanding is that part of the reason for it was to speed up Tanker soloing.|
Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
Oh, and Adeon, I'm not saying that I think the sets are completely balanced as they are right now. They might be, and they might not be. I'm just saying that allowing the ally-only buffs to be able to effect self isn't exactly a great way to balance the sets, it just throws the pendulum far back the other way.
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In the case of the 100% uptime full-team non-caster buffs I mostly advocate for them to be made PBAoEs that don't affect the caster or given longer active times as a method for making the set more interesting to play.
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Originally Posted by seebs
I find it strongly anti-compelling when a buff set has powers that you can't use on yourself, only on teammates. I do a fair bit of soloing, so such a set at least gives the impression of being a very poor choice.
What's the rationale behind power designs that rely on this? I never quite got it. |
Obviously this issue applies to all classes with buff/debuff sets, but I'll use Defenders as my example.
Defender buff/debuff sets are fairly easily divided into two nearly equal groups: sets that are fine for soloists and sets that are better for groups. Here is my version of the breakdown:
Soloable Defender Buff/Debuff sets:
Dark Miasma
Radiation Emission
Storm Summoning
Traps
Trick Arrow
Teaming Defender Buff/Debuff sets:
Cold Domination
Empathy
Force Fields
Kinetics
Sonic Resonance
Notice, the soloable sets are all primarily about debuffs, the teaming sets are all primarily about buffs.
Also, this is MY breakdown. There are plenty of people who consider Kinetics a perfectly good solo set and the soloable sets on my list all work just fine on teams as well.
Anyway, the point is, if you want to solo a buff/debuff toon: pick a set with mostly debuffs and certainly not one that relies heavily on single target buffs.
Wavicle, Energy/Energy Blaster, dinged 50 in Issue 4, summer of 2005.
@Wavicle, mostly on the Justice server.
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I firmly believe that the reason why ally buffs cannot be used on yourself has absolutely nothing to do with balance. Rather, it's because of game mechanics.|
Originally Posted by Obscure Blade
The idea as I understand it is that if you could use such buffs on yourself they'd be too powerful. Self buffs like Accelerated Metabolism or Unyielding tend to be either weaker or come with a crash, compared to buffs on others like ally Force Field bubbles.
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It is impossible to target yourself. You cannot do it, you are not a clickable object in the game window, and clicking on your name in the team list has no effect. (Except to say that you cannot target yourself) Thus, no targettable power can be applied to yourself.
To that end, there are three types of buffs in the game:
1) Self buffs. These have no target and are fired the moment you click them. In the case of toggles, they effect you from the moment they are turned on.
2) Single target buffs. These must be targetted on an ally (if they were targetted on a foe, it would be debuff) and thus cannot effect you. Many powers are balanced this way because it can be more useful in some cases to make a single ally extremely powerful than to give all your allies a global buff. Also, some buffs such as heals and mez protection, are situational and more useful when used when an ally specifically needs it.
3) PBAoE buffs. These are centered on the caster, and effect all allies and the caster. Obviously, such powers are just as useful to a buffer when he is all by himself. "Good" buff sets tend to have a lot of these. In some cases, the effect on the caster may be different (less) than the effected allies, but if there are such powers, they are rare. I cannot think of any examples off the top of my head. I believe that due to the way the game engine works, an AoE power cannot effect only allies and not the caster, unless the caster is not in the radius of the AoE. So in fact, you really could only make a PBAoE power STRONGER for the caster than for everyone else. (It would apply a Self Buff in addition to the PBAoE)
Now, it should be obvious that while the powers in category 2) cannot be used on the caster, and thus make the caster weaker than his teammates, the powers in category 1) cannot be used on the team, and thus make the caster stronger. By definition, self buff sets like Defense sets only effect the caster, and thus are entirely powers that make that AT very strong compared to other ATs. While buffers tend to have fewer such powers, they do have them. (Such as Personal Force Field in FF, Siphon Speed in Kin, or the damage boost powers in Pain Domination, although they need an ally to allow them to be activated)
Another important point is that sometimes (as with Pain Domination) a power can be multiple things at the same time. Siphon Power is both a debuff to the targetted foe and an PBAoE to the team. (including the caster) So you kind of have to keep that in mind when analyzing the usefulness to the caster. In a perfect world, a buffer would have self counterparts to his ally buffs that bring him to a comparable level.
My personal opinion is that all buff oriented sets should be this way, as debuff oriented sets by definition have an equal effect on both the caster and his team. Since it is the foe that is debuffed, anyone attacking him gains the advantage of that debuff. The idea that "buffers need to be weaker than their teammates" in order to be balanced seems incorrect to me, because no one is claiming that debuffers must ALSO be weaker than their teammates in order to be balance. So either buffs are more valuable than debuffs (which they may well be) or there should be an equivalent self buff to every ally only buff in a set.
The problem is, sometimes these self buffs are not so equivalent. It can be argued, for instance (there have dev posts that have argued this) that Personal Force Field is intended to be the counterpart to the ally buffs of Deflection and Insulation Shield. With PFF, in fact, a Force Fielder is far BETTER protected than anyone on his team. The problem, however, is that in practice the equivalency is not as close as that would seem to claim. PFF is a situational power, which cannot be used at all times (certainly as long as the Force Fielder wishes to contribute any of his powers to the team) while the ally shields are constant buffs that are available at all times.
The only solution to this is to tweak the buffs that are available so they are more equal across the board. But the devs are reluctant to do this because of the Cottage Rule. So it's a more complicated issue than just "let us use our targetted powers on ourselves". You would also need to somehow be able to use your self powers on allies. (While not letting other non-buffing ATs do the same) And you would need to balance that buffs can be potentially more powerful than debuffs, because they cannot be applied solo. This would take as much work as tweaking the sets in the first place, and Cottage Rule aside, I think this is the better solution.
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Yeah, but note also that Kinetics has a strong debuff component, in that it reduces the damage of foes, (with Siphon Power and particularly Fulcrum Shift) thus protecting the caster and the team. |
Originally Posted by Wavicle
Also, this is MY breakdown. There are plenty of people who consider Kinetics a perfectly good solo set and the soloable sets on my list all work just fine on teams as well.
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If the whole thing were to be scrapped and started over, I would call this the solution, to make the Buff/Debuff sets a balance BETWEEN buffs and debuffs, with all sets having powers that apply to the caster, to a targetted ally, to a group of allies, and to foes. But it is a bit late for that.
As it is, notice that a lot of the improvements in Pain Domination, and even in Thermal and Cold Domination, were brought about by adding debuffing powers to a primarily buff set. This may suggest a solution for the remaining pure buffing sets, as long as you can get around the Cottage Rule (i.e., add debuffing effects to existing powers instead of adding new ones)
BTW, you left out Thermal, although you did say you were listing Defenders, but I would call it a buff/team set along with Cold anyway. Pain, too.
[edit] Actually, back in the old days I used to group them in three categories:
Primarily Debuff
Dark Miasma
Storm Summoing
Trick Arrow
Traps
Balanced
Radiation Emission
Kinetics
Sonic Resonance
Cold Domination
Primarily Buff
Force Field
Empathy
Pain Domination
Thermal
Back in those days, though, it was just the first two on each list.
And the dividing line between the categories is up for discussion, I mainly put Cold Dom where it is because of Sleet and Snow Storm. (I also decided to move Traps up to Primarily Debuff when I moved Sonic. It only has two buffs, but then so does Dark) Note also that Dark Miasma, Storm Summoning, and Trick Arrow, which I put in the same category, also tend to have very strong control characteristics. This may balance their relative lack of ally buffs. Likewise, Force Field is both famous and infamous for its powerful (but often unwanted) control effects.
Also, if I were to categorize them in terms of offense and defense, that would be a completely different list.
Just to note the extremes, Trick Arrow has no buffs. (You still cannot heal someone by shooting them with an arrow, sorry
) Force Field and Empathy are both the purely buff sets with no debuffs.
Ditto to what others have said. Also, remember that there are several ATs that utilize buff sets; Defenders, Corruptors, Controllers, and Master Minds.
The each of these ATs to self buff, buff others to the same level, and provide an assortment of other abilities on top of that, particularly from range for many of them.
Still, I kind of agree that buff sets should be allowed to self buff, but not at the same capacity for buffing others. I'd hesitate to state a specific level strength for self buffing, but I'd wager a guess that 1/3.
Now, that could also cause some issues for other sets, such as kinetics would get quite a nerf from such a change. Thus, it probably wouldn't be the popular thing to do even if many other sets would benefit.
The targeting issue hadn't even occurred to me! I came here from another game, where you could indeed self-buff.
I'm not sure how much of a balance issue it would be to let people buff themselves with some of these things; on a full team, it's pretty marginal, but on a small team, it might seem fairly significant. I am not sure how much, if any, nerf would be needed to current team performance to balance it; I'd guess it'd be fairly trivial, though, honestly. I'd think the need to click so many times would totally cover that. 
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I honestly think it would be trivial. The necessary changes to the interface would be more time consuming, and possibily introduce more bugs effecting everyone else in the game. |
Originally Posted by seebs
I'm not sure how much of a balance issue it would be to let people buff themselves with some of these things; on a full team, it's pretty marginal, but on a small team, it might seem fairly significant. I am not sure how much, if any, nerf would be needed to current team performance to balance it; I'd guess it'd be fairly trivial, though, honestly. I'd think the need to click so many times would totally cover that.
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I'll be completely honest, though, I think that if Repulsion Field added a +15% Def to all, giving FF Defenders exactly the same Defense as they granted to their teammates, it would not imbalance them in any way. They still would have no offensive boosts capable of raising their damage above the 0.65 base, and the End cost of Repulsion Field, not to mention the cost of having foes slamming into it, would more than pay for the higher resiliance.
I honestly don't think that's the best change that could be made to Force Field, but I think it demonstrates clearly that making a buffer able to buff himself would not automatically lead to an "I win" button. It depends a lot on the buff itself, and how it's balanced to its effect vs how often you can use it.
I'll give a reason why changing the ally-buffs into self-buffs is a bad idea: "Adrenalin Boost". It's like Instant Healing on crack, and if you could apply it to yourself, you could easily make it perma with slotting and Hasten.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
As some folks know, I have personally been one of those players to start a "What If Thread on self-buffing". There is still a part of me that feels that the original design was flawed by allowing "debuffing" to be better at solo-ing. But since "debuffs" are applied to enemies, there was not much that could have been done about it. The result is what we have now where some sets are more "team-dependant" and others "not-so-much".
It is something that I believe needs to be looked at, but these days I only feel that small changes are needed in order to improve the "poor" soloers. I even have a current thread to talk about just these types of ideas
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=244612
BIOSPARK :: DARKTHORN :: SKYGUARD :: WILDMAGE
HEATSINK :: FASTHAND :: POWERCELL :: RUNESTAFF
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An Empath able to self-buff could out-regen a Regen scrapper. A bubbler able to self-buff would be better protected than a Super Reflexes scrapper. A Kinetics able to self-buff would have perma-Hasten -- without the expensive IO investment.
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Originally Posted by seebs
I'm not sure how much of a balance issue it would be to let people buff themselves with some of these things; on a full team, it's pretty marginal, but on a small team, it might seem fairly significant.
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What FW said. Plus, you know somebody would jump on their Corruptor, and figure a way to solo recluse and spank him all the way back to Spanklinburg Germany.
The way I see it, the game was supposed to be about teaming, but lately it seems like it's harder to find / make a team. Maybe because so many players think anything other than AE is a waste of time?
The way I understand it, you get more XP when teaming, right? And from my experience, just running papers / radios is better than AE. Cuzz you never know what someone is gonna put in an AE mish. I tried one the other day, was nothing but EB's everywhere. Waste of time, when I coulda been piling up defeats vs regular mobs.
I think the devs need to make the mission transporter have a much faster recharge than 30 minutes. I hate it when someone joins my team, then sees the mish is in FL, then drops instantly. Just because it would take them a few minutes to get there.
I think if teaming was easier to get started, folks wouldn't worry about trying to solo a defender or troller. I mean, adding just one def or troller is basically free XP for all. There's got to be a way to make teaming easier, like an "auto team" mode or something, so nobody has to bear the "burden" of leadership.
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This really hasn't been my experience. I regularly run TFs on Sunday and Monday nights after 9PM PST and rarely have problems getting a team together. The global channels are such an excellent source I don't even send tells anymore to recruit for teams.
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Originally Posted by Skyster
I think if teaming was easier to get started, folks wouldn't worry about trying to solo a defender or troller. I mean, adding just one def or troller is basically free XP for all. There's got to be a way to make teaming easier, like an "auto team" mode or something, so nobody has to bear the "burden" of leadership.
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Yeah, I am on at some odd times. I'm basically on Australian time. i wonder if there's a server with lots of Australian players? i'd basically be on in their "prime time". But still, an "auto team" mode might be a good thing. It does get kinda hectic, trying to lead a team, recruit, and fight all at once.
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It's not that the power can't be used on yourself. Any power that you can cast on a teammate you could theoretically cast on yourself. |
Originally Posted by seebs
I find it strongly anti-compelling when a buff set has powers that you can't use on yourself, only on teammates. I do a fair bit of soloing, so such a set at least gives the impression of being a very poor choice.
What's the rationale behind power designs that rely on this? I never quite got it. |
The problem is that you can't target yourself.
If you could, it would create huge problems with all kinds of sets.
Empathy defenders would suddenly become one of the strongest soloing sets in the game. Permanent Fortitude adding around 22% defense to all, and buffing your damage and to-hit, Clear Mind keeping you completely free of mez effects, and Adrenaline Boost increasing your regeneration, recovery, and recharge to ridiculous levels. Since Adrenaline Boost gives you a 100% recharge boost, if you could cast it on yourself it would be almost enough on it's own to make it permanent.
Force Field defenders, controllers, and masterminds would be able to softcap themselves with very little effort.
Thermal Radiation characters would be able to get good resists, mez protection, and a damage boost.
And so on. The ability to target yourself would make sets that are balanced around buffing others into some of the most powerful sets in the game. If such self-targeting ever happened, I would expect HUGE nerfs to any (currently) ally-only power to compensate for it.
The reason those powers are such huge buffs is because you can't use them on yourself. Adrenaline Boost is a prime example of that. A 100% recharge buff is great when it's a long recharge power that can only be applied to others. It quickly becomes overpowered when you can apply that 100% recharge buff to yourself, because it would counteract the long recharge it was given to balance the sheer power of the buff. It has already been proven that 2 Empathy characters with high recharge can keep Adrenaline Boost on each other permanently, meaning that it would be possible to keep it on yourself permanently if you could target yourself.
It would also cause other problems. What about a power like Absorb Pain in Empathy? It heals by a huge amount, but damages you and prevents you from being healed by ANY means for a short time. If you could use it on yourself, it would become a self-damage power and nothing more because of the way it functions. The inability to be healed would likely counteract the heal it gives, causing you to damage yourself and use endurance for no benefit at all.
Also, if you were a valid target for your own powers, any PBAoE would damage YOU as well. Blasters' Burn already does this, but that's a bug (it may have been fixed by now, not sure). If you were suddenly a valid target for your powers, the game engine might determine that you are going to be damaged by a PBAoE as well. I know you can't hurt your teammates with it, but if the "no targeting yourself" was implemented in response to a problem with PBAoEs changing it would recreate the very problem they were trying to fix.
So, in short, the ability to apply those buffs to yourself would be extremely overpowered. The value of an Empath to a team is in their buffs, not the heals like so many people erroneously believe. If they could apply those buffs to themselves, I guarantee they would be much less effective than they are currently.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Justice has a pretty dedicated bunch of aussies in #australia and #antipodes that have something running regularily just about every night. They do a lot of taskforces and organised teams. Check the Oceania forum section.|
Originally Posted by Skyster
Yeah, I am on at some odd times. I'm basically on Australian time. i wonder if there's a server with lots of Australian players? i'd basically be on in their "prime time". But still, an "auto team" mode might be a good thing. It does get kinda hectic, trying to lead a team, recruit, and fight all at once.
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Virtue/Freedom still has more population at that time (aussie peak times in early morning US times) but is more adhoc.
I find it strongly anti-compelling when a buff set has powers that you can't use on yourself, only on teammates. I do a fair bit of soloing, so such a set at least gives the impression of being a very poor choice.
What's the rationale behind power designs that rely on this? I never quite got it.