DR effects at haste

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

damn. I miss old pvp . Anyway ty mac

The thing is Posi, DR really kills any buff classes. Its not so much who can buff the fastest, but who has what buffs active. And right now, any buffs (even self buffs) are about useless.

While i understand that DR allows you guys to give us massive PvE powers without affecting PvP too much, it really makes about 80% of your ATs and powersets useless in PvP.

The DR curves could probably be a little ... better in some respects.


Having said that, DR isn't too harsh at normal buff levels for most things. Its particularly harsh against some things like tohit and defense. But looking at, say, damage: +95% damage slotting gets reduced to about +80%. Stacking +100% from build up generates a net buff of about +138%. In effect, BU can still buff +58% damage stacked on top of ED soft-cap damage slotting. Lower, but I wouldn't say useless.


Also: if you want +400% recharge in a PvP zone, all you need is... +1244% recharge. 25 Kins speed boosting you tops and you're there.

Very much this.

Rather than "who can buff the fastest" it's now "who can spam damage the fastest". At least before, the buffs gave a wider variety of AT's and Builds a point in PvP. Now, they might as well just grab another blaster.

First, thanks for reading and posting in a PvP thread.

Second, I have no problem with the CONCEPT of diminishing returns and understand that it gives the powers team a lot of room to tweak. I do, however, have a problem with the current DR settings as they make sonic, thermal, cold, and force field shields essentially useless as any character is going to have one or more shield toggles of their own along with built in PvP shields that essentially give blasters tanker level protection.

I think we would be better off without the PvP shields or at least greatly reduce their strength and relax the DR curve so that the first shield gives all or most of it's PvE benefit with any additional buffs hitting an ED-like wall of increasingly small benefits.

My first character was a Ice FF controler. I ve had him since may what 2004 or was it 2005 that the game came out, whatever. He has been shelved since Io's and DR came out. His secondary is next to useless in pve due to defense set bonuses and it is completely useless in pvp because you guys decided my shields would give like 1.8% defense to people. (slight exageration i think but its ridiculous).

Oh and pvp still is nothing other than uber fast kills such as "Player 1: Target flame man, two seconds later you hear three other players on vent say LOCK, 2 seconds after that you have a dead target."

Meh im enjoying the game more than I have in a very long time but this post......it makes me wonder.

1. Play more DE tip missions. Nobody soft caps those all by themselves (ok: very few).

2. 11.9% for the small bubbles based on SO slotting and no prior defense buffs.

3. I'll grant this though: tohit and defense is one of those few areas where DR almost does exactly the opposite of what its supposed to do.

Dear Mr. Positron,

I mean no disrespect with the following post. While DR does give developers more freedom in respect to moderating pvp effects; the problem is there has been very little moderation. As far as I'm aware, none of the major changes added with I13 have been tuned at all. There have been no adjustments to the major systems, even the ones that have glaring problems. Even major bug fixes take months to come down the pipeline.

In the above quote taken from the letter released with I13 you said the changes were to be a "solid foundation" for PvP. The problem is the pvp system is not solid. It is arguably more off balance than the original system. Many powers function completely differently than they do during PvE, and the system is overly complex even though gameplay has been simplified. This might not be such a problem, but it's not documented anywhere in-game. It seems like every week there's a post about people asking how this-or-that works in pvp. Most of the documentation has been put out by some of the more helpful, math-savvy members of the community.

With the release of the Incarnate abilities, I see pvp become more of a house of cards. The not-so-solid base system is being added to, how much will be built on top before it crumbles (some would say it did long ago)? While DR limits the effectiveness of the Alpha slot, will it do so with the next slot being released, or the one after that? The balance in pvp is already heavily tipped towards damage, how much moreso will it be when everyone is running around with fire-procs in their attacks, or -res? Lastly, it was said that I20 testing began before I19, if that's the case, how many PvPers are in the beta to give feedback on the affect it will have? I'd guess very few if any.

Steering back on topic, DR in itself is not a terrible mechanic. With all the other changes that have been made, it is a necessary mechanic. Without it, squishies would be running around with hard-capped resists, pvp would be terribly broken. Even though DR reduces defense numbers significantly, it also forces to-hit buffs into a very small window; effectively it makes defenses more viable than they were pre-i13, bringing them closer to the damage mitigation offered by resistance buffs. I still stand by 20% elusivity being the sweet-spot. Combining DR with some of the other mechanics is where things get bad.

Ex.
Imagine DR without global resistance. In that case, buffers with res shields would have some use again.

It would go a long way in the pvp community to see some small changes. Things like responding to feedback or observing/responding to testing, steps towards improving the system. It has been 2 years since pvp saw any big changes, in 2 more years without positive steps and the incarnate system, I imagine pvp will be un-playable.

One word of recommendation. Bring back base raids. PvPers like them. PvErs like them. Use pre-i13 rules, current rules, arena rules, it doesn't matter; people will like it and use it either way. It will make the PvPers and Base Builders both feel like they've had a cookie tossed to them. Sometimes a cookie goes a long way.

How about the players? The ones that actually play this game?

Bring them back, yes, but if base raids used zone rules they'd be a gigantic mess with the way travel suppression works.

What I'd like are arena options for all the I13 changes - travel suppression, heal decay, and diminishing returns are already available for change, but we're still missing the damage changes, mez changes, base resists, and the odd unresisted damage/effect/whatever. (Standard code rant) Damage changes wouldn't be too bad (set a toggle for "use PvE numbers"), base resists would likely be just as simple since they're essentially an always-on power. Mez changes would probably take the most work, but again there could be a "use PvE rules" button for those as well. Or, in its simplest form, tell the game that you're in a PvE zone and every target is a critter instead of a player. Unresisted damage or debuffs would be more difficult to implement I think, but it'd be nice to have an option for those as well.

I've been saying it for the last two years, but there is absolutely no reason that players should be forced to adapt to a system that doesn't make sense when it's likely trivial (or at worst a few weeks' worth of work for an underling or two) to give them the option of using 90% of the old system.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

Both Damage changes and Mez changes could be toggled by implementing extended isPvP flags: isPvPdamage?, isPvPmez?, etc, and having zones and the arena set those smaller flags off and on rather than a global PvP flag. The arena could then control them. Its almost certainly easier than mucking with the entity target flags.

Its how I would have done it in I13. I always thought the system should have been built for this type of thing from the start.

Still think they should have gone with shifting zone-centric buffs and debuffs for Zone-PvP (above and beyond completing the missions) instead of character based ones.

That way, the Powers team could still be flexible in creating and modifying; while there would be no definitive/long-standing advantage for anyone player type.

For example:

completing missions to create various travel suppression: No/limited range TP, jump height suppression, travel speed suppression (by type or across the board), no flight; etc.

random buff/debuff(s) that rotate through one or more neighborhoods on a timer or depending on type of NPC presence/control in the area

A kheld inherent-type dynamic for all ATs when in a PvP zone; either an extremely diverse of buffs with DR and/or a complex mix of buffs/debuffs; 50/50

Being able to temporarily lift the post-I13 DR rules by completing zone missions or by completing aspects of the zone's background story (collecting meteor fragments, etc)

Hey, Posi,

Have you guys actually tweaked DR at all since I13's release?

I mean ... you could.

Just like those guys I know with sheds full of power tools could finish their basements, but never seem to get around to it.

All of the silly annoying changes you made to pvp yet people still get 2 shotted, stack inspirations, etc. All your changes did was create more problems rather than solve existing problems. Need to take some time by first undoing castles changes and then really fixing the imbalances to make a system that more can agree on that is fair.

I hope you are atleast considering the above.

/sorry to hijack

Just for giggles, (and for my benefit, not Arcana's) I took my bubbler into RV. In AP, she had just over 26 s/l def.

In RV, 15.

In RV with 10 small purples, Combat Jumping, Dispersion Bubble, Maneuvers, and a + def unique ... 20.87.

Like, really?

The DR defense curve for defenders appears to start at something less than 3 since, with only the +def unique active, her s/l def is 2.83 and /rapidly/ escalates since a fully-slotted dispersion bubbles adds less than 10% def (i.e., less than its base value of 10). With DB, CJ, and the unique, I come up with 13.3 s/l def, and it gets bumped up to 15 with a slotted Maneuvers.

I.e., the amount of def added by FF's ST buffs is borderline meaningless to a squishy standing somewhat near my bubbler. Or, conversely, DB and Maneuvers ARE meaningless to someone covered by the small bubbles.

To me, this flies in the face of the "every buff useful" mantra of the GDR days.

But I digress.

DR would be somewhat more palatable if it were described in-game somewhere. Like, for instance, in the powers descriptions that says that DB gives +16.05% defense ... in PvP.

The DR defense cap for squishies sits at about 20% - you can add as much defense as you want, but you'll never really go much above that point. For example, PB'd Veng takes my MM from 15% S/L defense up to 19.5% when PB'd Veng on its own is something closer to 45%.

Unfortunately you can't really say how much defense (or any other attribute) a power will give you once you factor in DR. DR starts working at just your slotted enhancements - as Arcana said 95% enhancement will get cut down to around 80% and that's before you add in set bonuses or buffs. Since DR isn't a per-power curve but rather a curve based on totals, you can't say "this power will always provide this much defense/damage/tohit" because it depends on what buffs you've already got. My Therm shields might provide 15% resistance to one target but only 4% to another, for example.

The sad thing is there's really no easy way to figure out the numbers behind DR since it requires some knowledge of calculus. When a game requires players to do calculus to figure out how their character is going to function, there's something wrong.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

I work at a pizza store so I have sympathy. We also reduce the quality of our product in order to make the employees have an easier time.

this is gold

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

Who can argue with logic like this?

Uh, NO.

I'm sorry that you think you can speak for the community, but no. I, as a base builder, did NOT like base raids, because of all the necessary pathing restrictions that base raids required for PvP.

Second, as a primarily PvE player, I don't like PvP. Especially when it's forced PvP as Base Raids were. "Defend your hard work or watch it be destroyed, neener neener."