One-cast-to-all for Support Powers
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2011-04-11 18:47 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
Well there are a variety of opinions on this issue. I'm not going to mince words on my opinion on it though. City of Heroes' individual buffs suck. They are a combination of "too useful not to cast" and "very short duration," resulting in what could be called the "kitchen timer strategy." That is to say, there is no strategy. You just reapply them every 3 minutes. What "balance" exists around it is essentially based on burn out.
Now I'll just sit around and wait for the inevitable "well I have to hit buttons to use my attacks, that's the same thing!" comment. I think this time I'll propose putting all toggle powers on 4 minute timers with root time just like Force Fields work. That would be lots of fun.
BTW, of the characters over 40 I have, 2 are Force Field, 2 are Thermal, 2 are Sonic Res, 1 is Cold Dom, 1 is Kinetics. Someone is going to ask "why do you play sets you don't like" but the answer is liking buffs is not the same as liking buff mechanics. Having an opinion about sets you actually have experience with should hold some weight, but that's not the way the boards work.
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That does nothing to address the issues people playing these powersets have with buffing, except possibly to make them feel redundant. It certainly doesn't compel me to roll a FF defender, knowing that a scrapper can just as easily give out Destiny buffs.
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Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
You mean... like the ones you unlock during the raids?
Use those. |
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Originally Posted by Roderick
I see one glaring problem with this.
If the power were set up like this, there would likely be a Self -end effect each time a person is affected (cf. [Repulse]). That portion of the power is unaffected by Endurance Reduction enhancements. In order to have the shield instantly recharged whenever you're in range (or soon after), the power would have to pulse every 0.5 to 2.0s. Let's assume that you're on a trial with 14 other people - one of each AT - and they all stay within range of your bubble. The bubble pulses once every 0.5s and drains 0.1 End from you per pulse per target. Assuming that each character has as many buffable pet powers as they're capable of taking (7 for the mastermind, 5 for the Arachnos soldier, one each for the Controller, Dominator, and Blaster) plus one Patron pet for each AT except MM and one Lore pet per character, that's 63 targets (at least! I may have missed some) - plus you and your pets. That's 12.6 End drained from you every second. I don't care how good your recovery is, you will be flatlined in under a minute if you use ANY other powers, and in a couple minutes just by running this one toggle, even if it's "free" outside the "per target" cost. Even on a normal team without such a ridiculously massive number of pets, the end cost would be prohibitive. |
You are assuming too much at this stage.
Besides, there will be a way to get around this if the end cost is too high. No need to be bogged down with fine technical details yet. Lets work on the theme work first and conceptualise the GoL should it be implemented.
I've tried playing buffers several times, and the tedium of rebuffing is more that I can stand. The only reason my /therm got to 48 is the fact that most teams don't need the shields in the first place. From this angle, modifying the buff system would be an excellent thing.
But there's a flipside. As is, you can say "no SB/shields please" and not get them. There are legitimate reasons to not wanting these buffs: SB's +run makes smalls caves and council bases even more annoying, and some (few, fortunately) people colour their shields in ways that I find painful to look at*. So the question is, where's the easy opt-out option for the AoE mode of these buffs?
*I'm not speaking metaphorically. Thermal shields in particular can cause extreme discomfort.
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Originally Posted by SlyGuyMcFly
I've tried playing buffers several times, and the tedium of rebuffing is more that I can stand. The only reason my /therm got to 48 is the fact that most teams don't need the shields in the first place. From this angle, modifying the buff system would be an excellent thing.
But there's a flipside. As is, you can say "no SB/shields please" and not get them. There are legitimate reasons to not wanting these buffs: SB's +run makes smalls caves and council bases even more annoying, and some (few, fortunately) people colour their shields in ways that I find painful to look at*. So the question is, where's the easy opt-out option for the AoE mode of these buffs? *I'm not speaking metaphorically. Thermal shields in particular can cause extreme discomfort. |
Option 2 would be a Mind Link/RAs style mechanism; probably with buff duration last longer than the current 4 minutes. So, if someone does not want the buff, just avoid the group hug.
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Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I had assumed this was a limitation of the system.|
Originally Posted by Angelic_EU
So I would suggest to change certain buff powers, like shields, SB, etc., from the existing one-to-one casting to an AoE casting.
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In that, targeted castings of powers (shields, SB) do not allow the players to buff themselves (which I believe is a balance consideration) because they cannot target themselves vs. PBAoE or AoE buffs that do actually buff the player (For example, AM).
Wouldn't allowing shield buffs to be PBAoE castings also allow the player to buff themselves?
Why should buffing classes be ridiculous force multipliers in these trials? If the trial is balanced around 4-5 buffers being present, and every single player having about that many buffs active at all times, then the enemies will have to be ramped up to be nearly invulnerable to any player who happens to miss said buffs or who is unfortunate to ever actually die between buff cycles.
Most sets have plenty of AoE benefit. Empath has regen/recovery aura and a group heal. Cold has resist/defense debuffs which benefit the entire league. Kin can't SB everyone, but they have FS, transfusion, and transferrence.
There are very few sets which do not have at least some powers that make significant contributions to the entire league, and you can always buff your own team regardless. However, DPS characters are no stronger in leagues than they are teams. Why skew the balance in the buffers' favor when the game so largely rewards them in the 8 man content?
That being said, you need some internal balance amongst the support characters, so there may be a few outliers that need to be improved just for the sake of variety amongst support characters. Shields may be one, but I can't think of any others, besides *maybe* thermal.
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Right. Because that's so incredibly easy to do while you enter the mission, check your toggles and whatnot - know the precise position of every player. |
Originally Posted by Angelic_EU
Option 2 would be a Mind Link/RAs style mechanism; probably with buff duration last longer than the current 4 minutes. So, if someone does not want the buff, just avoid the group hug.
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There's also the flipside of someone missing the buff thanks to JUST being out of range when it's cast, and having no buff whatsoever for the next several minutes. Right now? I can just buff them out of order. And no, I am NOT going to break up a mission flow to repeatedly yell "OK, everyone, stop running and huddle up for buffs!" I don't do that NOW, and that sort of change to buffs I currently apply individually would make me shelve those characters.
/bind left "powexecname bubble1"
/bind right "powexecname bubble2"
Takes a few seconds to go down the list, left-right-next-left-right, and then you're off.
Last but not least (and another reason I'm *strongly* against AOE-ing shields) is that I remember the old Sonic shields. And they're being brought to mind again because one of the Incarnate team buffs (no, I don't recall the one, likely the defense one) has... ready? Giant AOE with flashy effects that are causing a good friend to start getting headaches.
I figured the devs would have learned LAST time to avoid those effects. But, nope - and now we have people firing them off in the RWZ, firing them off in Pocket D, firing them off in missions, and with a big enough AOE it's damn hard to avoid.
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Now, CoH was my first MMO way back when, so this is just what I've read, and not firsthand experience. But I was told that in the pre-CoH (and thus, pre-WoW) days of MMOs, there were buffs with durations that might be an hour or more, and were very strong. A CoH example would be something like a version of Painbringer that was just as strong but lasted two hours. So buffing classes would stand around at transit points and offer to sell these buffs to players. Not give them away, sell them. So eventually, MMO devs started toning down buffs in one way or another so this couldn't happen. CoH took the "duration is short" method. WoW took the "buffs aren't that critical in most situations" method, etc. Whether this has any bearing on today's game is debatable, I'm just answering your question of why as best I know.|
Originally Posted by EvilRyu
Personally I have always wonder why the durations of ally buffs are so short.
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As far as the debate goes, I would personally like to see a more league-friendly method of buffing. Just my two cents, though, and I understand there are downsides.
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In those MMOs (like Everquest 1) fighting through general content to gain XP was several orders magnitude more time consuming than it is in CoH. |
Originally Posted by SpacePope
Now, CoH was my first MMO way back when, so this is just what I've read, and not firsthand experience. But I was told that in the pre-CoH (and thus, pre-WoW) days of MMOs, there were buffs with durations that might be an hour or more, and were very strong. A CoH example would be something like a version of Painbringer that was just as strong but lasted two hours.
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This was also the time before instanced quests were common.
Mostly it was open zone camp spawning and handing in 500 mammoth tusks or something to complete quest.
So the durations were in some ways appropriate.
Although, actual combat was not nearly as busy as it can be in CoH.
Well, except for my Bard anyway.
I'll take all of the "useless" buffers over the abundance of lolmelee that's on most trials.
[U][URL="http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=251594"][/URL][/U]
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Originally Posted by SpacePope
Now, CoH was my first MMO way back when, so this is just what I've read, and not firsthand experience. But I was told that in the pre-CoH (and thus, pre-WoW) days of MMOs, there were buffs with durations that might be an hour or more, and were very strong. A CoH example would be something like a version of Painbringer that was just as strong but lasted two hours. So buffing classes would stand around at transit points and offer to sell these buffs to players. Not give them away, sell them. So eventually, MMO devs started toning down buffs in one way or another so this couldn't happen. CoH took the "duration is short" method. WoW took the "buffs aren't that critical in most situations" method, etc. Whether this has any bearing on today's game is debatable, I'm just answering your question of why as best I know.
As far as the debate goes, I would personally like to see a more league-friendly method of buffing. Just my two cents, though, and I understand there are downsides. |
The hurdle that has to be overcome with buffs is that a duration that is too long actually encourages teams to get their buffs and leave the buffer at the door, while the "real" characters go fight. That is why I suggested having the duration reset via being hit by a Dispersion Bubble, Warmth, Transfusion, and so on, so that maintaining the buff requires keeping the team member around.
To make it more palatable to the raid situation, have it apply to team members only. If the bubbler wants to keep more than just his or her team perma buffed, that's extra work they'd need to do. Although to be honest, in the wake of PBAoE shields that buff entire leagues, at this point I would be completely okay with Sonic Resonance and Force Field just getting a straight up "buff everyone at once" power. Those two sets have more than paid for that level of utility. I've long defended Force Field as a set pre-50, but in the end game it's in need of some serious buffs.
Honestly, I wouldn't mind an aoe-option for buffs for classes whose primary attribute is support. Granted, that just means for defenders, but still. ....yeah, I'm kidding.
The only thing I think could be fair for this would be to add an area-effect component to targeted buffs. Even then you'd just be asking for trouble with a whole new plethora of issues introduced to the equation.
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Again, I have to ask why exactly a buffer is entitled to have the effectiveness of their abilities tripled when joining a league?
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Originally Posted by Psychoti
Honestly, I wouldn't mind an aoe-option for buffs for classes whose primary attribute is support. Granted, that just means for defenders, but still. ....yeah, I'm kidding.
The only thing I think could be fair for this would be to add an area-effect component to targeted buffs. Even then you'd just be asking for trouble with a whole new plethora of issues introduced to the equation. |
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They aren't having the effectiveness increased, they are simply being made easier to use. I'll also point out that any buffer with an AoE buff has it's effectiveness tripled when joining a leage. Why should people with shield powers be excluded?
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Originally Posted by StabBot
Again, I have to ask why exactly a buffer is entitled to have the effectiveness of their abilities tripled when joining a league?
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What do you mean by "entitled"? Was there a civil rights violation discussed somewhere in this thread I am unaware of? When a damage power gets buffed, do we "ask why that powerset is entitled to do five times as much damage from the same click versus before?" There is no objective relationship between button clicks and power effect.
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Originally Posted by StabBot
Again, I have to ask why exactly a buffer is entitled to have the effectiveness of their abilities tripled when joining a league?
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Who has shield powers? Cold has them, and they also have powerful debuffs which affect the entire league, as well as Heat Loss which does the same. Thermal is in worse shape, but still not too badly off with their AoE, Heat Exhaustion, and Melt Armor. |
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
They aren't having the effectiveness increased, they are simply being made easier to use. I'll also point out that any buffer with an AoE buff has it's effectiveness tripled when joining a leage. Why should people with shield powers be excluded?
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Shields is the only powerset that really falls short when it comes to buffing leagues, so the real problem is that Shields isn't nas good on incarnate trials, not that buffing in general is flawed. That's a much more approachable problem that can be addressed with a far less dramatic approach.
Having played a Kin for quite some time, I can certainly agree that buffing is tedious, but I wouldn't agree that being unable to keep a league supplied with SB makes the character ineffective. Fulcrum Shift and transfusion are extremely powerful in leagues. So again, while I agree that buffing is tedious, I think it's a general game issue, not a problem that arose in i20.
As for the sets that are purely AoE, like Rad, Dark, etc., I'm not certain their powers are unfairly superior to the single target buffers. It all depends on how closely you can really expect a group to stay together and whether you can actually coordinate pulling everyone together for buffs. Furthermore, the most difficult part of Lambda splits the two groups.
Overall I just don't see the big deal. Buffers already got a major improvement this patch because it's now possible for soft capped characters to really take damage without buffs.
Lastly, I ask again how powerful you guys think the enemies in these missions would need to be if they were balanced around characters having a full set of buffs from 5 or more support characters on them at all times?
I'm seeing some opposition to the idea that's framing the argument as an either/or proposition. That doesn't have to be the case.
Deus mentioned Everquest, and buff durations aside that game is a good example of buffs that evolved as more multi-group content was introduced. When EQ started, all buffs were single-target buffs. As new expansions were introduced, the devs started giving players some group buffs as well as the single-target versions, to reduce setup time during raids. Eventually they implemented a separate ability. When a player activated this ability, the next group buff he cast became an AoE buff. At no point did the devs remove any buffing options. They simply introduced new ones.
CoH could have the same options. It could be easy as giving some of the powersets a new toggle switch. When the toggle is on, shield buffs become AoE buffs. Add whatever penalties you think would be appropriate: increased endurance cost, can't affect the caster, etc. When the toggle is turned off, the shield buffs become single-target buffs again, just like they've always been. You can still use them to buff stragglers and players who have been defeated. Players would not lose any flexibility in buffing others. They would simply gain new options, and hopefully make the process of buffing a bunch of people at once less tedious.
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That's a very interesting idea although I'm not sure if it would work. Previous powers that did something like this (notably Dual Blades and Dual Pistols) only varied the effects of the power, not the area.
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Originally Posted by Intrinsic
CoH could have the same options. It could be easy as giving some of the powersets a new toggle switch. When the toggle is on, shield buffs become AoE buffs. Add whatever penalties you think would be appropriate: increased endurance cost, can't affect the caster, etc. When the toggle is turned off, the shield buffs become single-target buffs again, just like they've always been. You can still use them to buff stragglers and players who have been defeated. Players would not lose any flexibility in buffing others. They would simply gain new options, and hopefully make the process of buffing a bunch of people at once less tedious.
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How powerful are they now because it's possible to do that already. I mentioned it on the first page but balancing powers by making them inconvenient to use is a bad idea. If a power is designed to allow 100% uptime on an entire team then is should be balanced assuming that it's going to be up 100% of the time.|
Originally Posted by StabBot
Lastly, I ask again how powerful you guys think the enemies in these missions would need to be if they were balanced around characters having a full set of buffs from 5 or more support characters on them at all times?
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Now, a compromise solution would be to turn the shield buffs from ally targeted to an AoE that only affects Team Mates. I don't think that is necessary but I also think it would be an improvement over the current implementation.
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They would be stronger because the 5 players who are normally buffing would be controlling/blasting instead.
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Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
How powerful are they now because it's possible to do that already.
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| I mentioned it on the first page but balancing powers by making them inconvenient to use is a bad idea. |
If players were able to cast these powers with fewer actions they would be free to do other things. That means more heals, damage, debuffs, etc., and I think it's a reasonable assumption that those are part of the overall balance equation. To say that it should take less time to buff more players is to advocate for a buff to the archetypes. Do you feel they are underpowered or just annoying?
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| If a power is designed to allow 100% uptime on an entire team then is should be balanced assuming that it's going to be up 100% of the time. |
Furthermore, I appreciate the option for players to spend the whole TF just buffing if they want to. No reasonable team is going to expect that, but if you enjoy it enough you still have the option. Restricting buffs to teams would remove that option, as well as make building groups far more complicated. Right now you can be in group 3 and still shield the tanks in group 1 and 2, while putting a shield on the reckless blaster or the Scrapper tanking adds in group 3.
It feels like the changes proposed here would result in a loss of player choice when it comes to playstyle or a general watering down of the abilities so they are less potent in leagues.
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Clearly the game would fall apart if Force Field players started blasting more often. |
Originally Posted by StabBot
They would be stronger because the 5 players who are normally buffing would be controlling/blasting instead.
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| I think this is a distortion or a dysphemism. They are currently balanced against time, not inconvenience. The fact that spending time on them isn't enjoyable is another point entirely (and one on which I agree with you). |
Often when people defend the way these powers currently work, they say that they were "balanced" in some way in which any changes to them risks a massive nerf. This implies that the shield buffs--and, specifically, the way they are applied--have been carefully balanced in such a way that a kind of "spagetti situation" exists, in which any change to them means invalidating some a sacred (and secret) coda of game balance.
Having played these powersets for a few years now, I get a rather different impression. My theory is that however many years ago these powers were created by someone who had no intention of actually playing them. Due to time constraints and/or engine limitations, he or she implemented a system that matched what he or she thought a player interested in buffing might want, and that system has basically carried through since then.
I will give them credit for getting two things right: the powers are useful enough to be worth casting (a serious flaw in some other games), and their durations are short enough that the players can't just leave the buffer at the mission door. IMO it is a pretty good foundation for a buff system. What was missed is that this set up essentially created an optimal strategy that is the buffing equivalent of having a confirmation pop up show up on the characters screen once a minute. This is essentially related to the fact than building a blast set with 8 good powers and a 9th one that recharges in half a second and does three times as much damage as anything else; you can choose to "not use the T9" to make the game more fun, but then you are just hurting yourself. Hence, balance through frustration.
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| To say that it should take less time to buff more players is to advocate for a buff to the archetypes. Do you feel they are underpowered or just annoying? |
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I disagree with this on several levels. The first is that DPS classes don't scale upwards the way buffers do. To balance these buffs with 100% uptime on a league would mean a serious rebalancing in 8 player play, aka a significant nerf. ... It feels like the changes proposed here would result in a loss of player choice when it comes to playstyle or a general watering down of the abilities so they are less potent in leagues. |
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The problem with this is two-fold. First off it would make them pretty much the only powers in the game to be balanced around animation time. The only other case I can recall of animation time being stated as a balance factor are the first two powers in Blaster primaries which have standardized animation times. Apart from that animation time is considered separately from damage/recharge/endurance.|
Originally Posted by StabBot
I think this is a distortion or a dysphemism. They are currently balanced against time, not inconvenience. The fact that spending time on them isn't enjoyable is another point entirely (and one on which I agree with you).
If players were able to cast these powers with fewer actions they would be free to do other things. That means more heals, damage, debuffs, etc., and I think it's a reasonable assumption that those are part of the overall balance equation. To say that it should take less time to buff more players is to advocate for a buff to the archetypes. |
Secondly you can (and generally do) buff people with shields in between combat which means they aren't using up casting time anyway. Few encounters last longer than 4 minutes.
So overall I don't consider the "casting time balance" argument to be valid.
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| Do you feel they are underpowered or just annoying? |
What that means to me (combined with my points above) is that the sets are balanced around the idea of the buffs being up 100% of the time and that casting time isn't a concern. As such I feel making them easier to use isn't so much a buff to the set as a general quality of life improvement.
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| I disagree with this on several levels. The first is that DPS classes don't scale upwards the way buffers do. To balance these buffs with 100% uptime on a league would mean a serious rebalancing in 8 player play, aka a significant nerf. |
Damage in Leagues is not evenly distributed over all league members but instead disproportionately focused on a few (mostly melee characters). From a general damage taken point of view shielding the entire league is only marginally superior to shielding the small portion of characters who are actually taking damage.
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I agree with this. Earlier in this thread I mentioned a certain other MMO increasing Buff durations to an hour. I would very much oppose such a change in this game.|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
I will give them credit for getting two things right: the powers are useful enough to be worth casting (a serious flaw in some other games), and their durations are short enough that the players can't just leave the buffer at the mission door. IMO it is a pretty good foundation for a buff system. What was missed is that this set up essentially created an optimal strategy that is the buffing equivalent of having a confirmation pop up show up on the characters screen once a minute. This is essentially related to the fact than building a blast set with 8 good powers and a 9th one that recharges in half a second and does three times as much damage as anything else; you can choose to "not use the T9" to make the game more fun, but then you are just hurting yourself. Hence, balance through frustration.
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The way I see it the small shields are (or should be) essentially balanced as if they were a toggle power with an extreme radius. They are a bonus you always get for having the character on your team and remaining reasonably close to them but if you spend to much time away you lose the benefit until you rejoin them. Using that logic extending the duration would break this balance but making them easier to use would not. 4 minutes seems a very sensible duration to me, it's long enough that the caster doesn't become a buff-bot but short enough that you can't have them door-sit.
I say everyone pays for their own buff endurance wise. I buff you and it is always on you pay for it with endurance cost. Consider it a leeching type power. Only time you need to rebuff someone is if they die or they get drained of endurance. Or how about the option to either have the temp versions as it is now or the Leeching type effect.
Just like MB mentioned the new powers I can say if you have endurance issues then you can always pick up the cardiac incarnate for those times you want buffs but cant afford the endurance cost for it.
I'm glad though there are players like you MB that have no issues buffing everyone every 4 minutes. I have a Robot FF MM and I only solo with him because it can such a pain in the backside to keep buffing everyone. It was my first and last buffer. On top of they boring to play since 40% of your powers work on someone else and offer you no benefits.
1. Why Soft Cap is Important : http://dechskaison.blogspot.com/2011...important.html
2. Limits: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Limits
3. Attack Mechanics: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics
4. Rule of Five: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Rule_o...e_Law_of_Fives