Ever going to be able to SB, Shield, Buff ourselves?!
By
A Man In Black,
Posted on: 2011-06-13 10:30 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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Kind of ironic for a game with a miniscule playerbase (relative to its competition) to be so heavily focused around grouping.
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Originally Posted by Nightchill_EU
The whole balance on CoH is based on teamplay, thats what makes it different to other games.
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Not really, the game has always excelled at being team based from level 1 onwards. |
Originally Posted by Black Zot
Kind of ironic for a game with a miniscule playerbase (relative to its competition) to be so heavily focused around grouping.
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Getting onto casual PuG teams and running some missions together tends to be much, much easier than any other MMO I've played.
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Again thats just bull crap because even with all that survivability you are not going to be taking down any GMs or Avs without some kind of outside help so your point is null and void as I said. All the survivability in the world does not make something overpowered especially if it takes you a week to kill something.
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
I'll grant that agro control will be an issue. Damage dealing won't be if you could self buff.
Fortitude is a 30% damage buff for Defenders, correct? If you take that, and add the 30% solo damage buff Defenders get now, then add Assault's 18.5% damage buff, you end up with a 78.5% damage buff, with no outside help at all. That is also before any damage set bonuses are taken into account. You will be easily outdamaging a Corruptor, and you'll be creeping up on Blaster level damage output. I'd hardly call that "issues with damage dealing" I've never seen a Night Widow who is softcapped to everything, has Perma-Hasten with only 40% global recharge, is rocking Instant Healing level regen rates, and can heal back half their health bar every 5 seconds. Have YOU seen a Night Widow that can do that? Because that's what a self-buffing Empath would be doing. It's not just the ability to do something, it's the AMOUNT of that ability that determines whether something is overpowered. |
Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
Kenja No Ishi Earth/Empathy Controller
Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator
Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!
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Teamplay you say? What about how tanks/scrappers/brutes can build to easily take on challenges without even needing a team, when ever other MMO the tank literally has have a healer or support character glued to their hip. You can not say this game is balanced around teaming anymore. The minute stuff like this happens all the past reasoning to not allow self buffing needs to go out the window period.
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Originally Posted by Nightchill_EU
Its the way the game work. You cannot target youself. Single target buffs and heals are balanced around the fact they cannot affect the owner. AoE buffs/heals are either less effective or have long cooldowns or have some limitation that make them less powerfull than single target buffs/heals.
Seriously do you realise how freaking easy it is to cap def a FF Fender? Self buffing bubbles would get them to cap at lvl 22, Scrappers/Brutes/Tankers have to build for it! The whole balance on CoH is based on teamplay, thats what makes it different to other games. |
Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
Kenja No Ishi Earth/Empathy Controller
Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator
Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!
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Actually, with that amount of damage, recharge and recovery buffage and something like Sonic you probably are. |
Originally Posted by EvilRyu
Again thats just bull crap because even with all that survivability you are not going to be taking down any GMs or Avs without some kind of outside help so your point is null and void as I said. All the survivability in the world does not make something overpowered especially if it takes you a week to kill something.
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Plus "taking down GMs and AVs" isn't the metric the game is balanced around, in any way shape or form anyway, it's how it'd affect the other 99.9% of the game (the bit where the rewards are) which is more important.
The main reason I'd be against "self buffing" is that it'd lead to a plethora of self-buffing Empaths power multiplying themselves and ignoring their team-mates.
I'd only like to see any form of self-buff be a non-stacking side effect of applying to buff to someone or something else. It's the only way this suggestion could be tweaked so as to be balanced that I can see.
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Most npcs do not have toggles most of them are clicks that work like toggles. Of the few that actually are toggles they have a set time duration kind of like the butchered phase shift power. Look at a group of mobs that spawn together that use debuffs or buffs. You will never see 2 Tsoo sorcerers that are from the same spawn point use the same debuff at the sametime. They always alternate. Same with the witches that do hurricane or the CoT ghosts.
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Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
This doesn't make much sense. Dr Aeons bubble is a toggle shield or self-buff, like the myriad of toggle shields we already have in the game. There's no "self targetting" involved, he just activates a power.
If the game was being designed now then yep, i'd agree with the idea of "let us target ourselves", but the no-self-targeting has been a feature of the Cryptic engine for years now and I'd imagine (like things like reflecting damage) it'd be near impossible to patch in now. I'd be all for adding a secondary buff to yourself (not at full strength though) but I'm not sure how you'd get it to work solo. Fudge it in some way so that you could use an enemy/corpse to bounce it off perhaps, it wouldn't buff them, just provide a target for the power to fire off. Or some sort of pseudopet summon inherent power which is only there to use as a target dummy for the self-buff portion of the power. |
Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
Kenja No Ishi Earth/Empathy Controller
Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator
Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!
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I would rather have so called overpowered self buffing empaths that ignore the teammates than players who totally skip the ally buffs simply because they do not work solo. I just do not see it happening that way because the way the empathy buffs work, they do more for the tanks/scrappers/brutes/stalkers than they do for everyone else. So anyone choosing to buff themselves instead of their teammates would be an idiot anyways. So in either case it would not be good to team with them anyways.
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Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
Actually, with that amount of damage, recharge and recovery buffage and something like Sonic you probably are.
Plus "taking down GMs and AVs" isn't the metric the game is balanced around, in any way shape or form anyway, it's how it'd affect the other 99.9% of the game (the bit where the rewards are) which is more important. The main reason I'd be against "self buffing" is that it'd lead to a plethora of self-buffing Empaths power multiplying themselves and ignoring their team-mates. I'd only like to see any form of self-buff be a non-stacking side effect of applying to buff to someone or something else. |
Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
Kenja No Ishi Earth/Empathy Controller
Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator
Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!
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That's not how Empath buffs work. AB is pretty much wasted on Tanks and Fort is better on the high damage, low defense ATs. Blasters, Corruptors, Warshades (WSs do really well with AB on them) and Dominators tend to be better targets unless Mr Tank is actually struggling to survive (obviously sets come into it too, a Shield/SS tank is a good candidate compared to an AR/Dev blaster but a Fire/Fire Blaster gets the nod way ahead of a WP/Stone tank)|
Originally Posted by EvilRyu
I would rather have so called overpowered self buffing empaths that ignore the teammates than players who totally skip the ally buffs simply because they do not work solo. I just do not see it happening that way because the way the empathy buffs work, they do more for the tanks/scrappers/brutes/stalkers than they do for everyone else. So anyone choosing to buff themselves instead of their teammates would be an idiot anyways. So in either case it would not be good to team with them anyways.
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For an Empath a self-targetted AB would be gold as it'd buff its own recharge time, the recharge time of the auras and allow them to overcome their own Nuke Crash (that nuke which is also being buffed by the various damage buffs they could have).
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From what I have read about some of these other games if you are not in a guild group or some other faction you have no chance of teaming,and just getting mugged every time you pick up something worth having|
Originally Posted by Black Zot
Kind of ironic for a game with a miniscule playerbase (relative to its competition) to be so heavily focused around grouping.
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Prof Radburn controller,Celtic Ice Maiden,blaster,Miss Knockout scrapper,Mistress Davina controller,Stone Hart,tank Split Personality PB.Queen Lostris controller,Fridgid Mary blaster,Shocking Fire blaster Future Elfling defender, Little Weed controller,Capo Angelo MM, Commander Buzzsaw MM, Justice Tank tank all 50,s
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How is it possible to take an example of a qol buff meant to help buffers on leagues meant to make things easier on the new direction of content aimed at said large teams and extrapolate that to mean that the game is not balanced around teaming anymore? |
Originally Posted by EvilRyu
Teamplay you say? What about how tanks/scrappers/brutes can build to easily take on challenges without even needing a team, when ever other MMO the tank literally has have a healer or support character glued to their hip. You can not say this game is balanced around teaming anymore. The minute stuff like this happens all the past reasoning to not allow self buffing needs to go out the window period.
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I think it would be op'd to do so. However, considering the amount of changes I would have deemed unwise for balance/its too freaking easy already reasons that have actually happened(aoe buffs, fitness) you probably only need to wait 6 months or so.
Look at all the 'can only buff others' sets, and you'll notice the 'only other players' powers are almost always twice as powerful as the 'me too' powers. Why? It's balance by averaging. The allies get to be twice as strong from the buffs because you never will be. You, the source of the buffs, become the Achilles heal of the team. This is pretty balanced. You go down, the source is cut off, the team stops being so tough. (eventually, depending on buff duration)
Wait, you say that others can make themselves just as strong? Well, yes. But almost exclusively themselves. You play a melee character and you make the opposite trade- You are the stronger team member, but you can't make other players much better.
This is ignoring another issue- just about every 'target other' power is a click, not a toggle. Melee characters get toggles to buff themselves- if something drains them, overcomes their mez protection, or so on, their protection suppresses or shuts down. if buffers could target themselves, in many cases they'd keep their buffs even without endurance or while mezzed.
Lastly, many sets that are 'buff the team only' carry incredibly powerful debuffs. It doesn't matter so much if you're squishy if the enemy can't hit worth spit and melt quickly even under medium firepower due to debuffs. This is something melee characters, as "overpowered" as they are, almost never get, and don't get in the same range as buff/debuff sets. If you let these sets *coughCOLDcough* buff themselves, they not only make the team and themselves far tougher, they turn enemies to wimpy mush. They become the toughest archetypes out there with not any counterpoint to balance them.
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My Rad/Sonic Defender can take down GMs and AVs without outside help already.|
Originally Posted by EvilRyu
Again thats just bull crap because even with all that survivability you are not going to be taking down any GMs or Avs without some kind of outside help so your point is null and void as I said. All the survivability in the world does not make something overpowered especially if it takes you a week to kill something.
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And this is without Incarnate abilities, because i haven't bothered with them on that character yet.
A self-buffing Empathy/Sonic or Empathy/Rad could easily take down AVs, just by survivability and pure DPS. GMs would be in the realm of possibility with Incarnate abilities.
Do you know what the first non-Controller AT was to take down a GM solo? It was a DEFENDER. And it was LONG before Incarnate abilities were even on the horizon. Like 2-3 years ago, shortly after the introduction of inventions.
Can't deal enough damage to take things down? THAT is the bull crap here. Defenders can already solo those things, give them the ability to self buff and it will become trivial for them to do.
I see all this "Defenders can't do this, defenders can't do that" coming from you as a justification to allow self-buffing, and everything you have been saying they can't do, they have already been doing for a long time now.
Maybe you're just saying YOUR Defenders can't do those things. If that's the case, maybe you just need to build better defenders.
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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. |
I just realized how hideously powerful my Plant/Empath would be if I could buff myself. Why am I arguing against this?
/signed
I just dont get the argument against this. Especially the fear of tank mages. The game is full of tank mages now. The game is completly different than it used to be, for the most part, for the good. I never understand people who jump up and tell you to play a solo intended character, that line is long blurred in this game. Everyone wants a buffer, but then tell them, that when they do solo, they should grin and bear it, while they play their scrappers, brutes, tanks whenever they want, with almost zero downside in any mission they run.
I dont like the argument that the character AT I chose is always supposed to be good, the one you chose is supposed to be good sometimes and less good others. Melees go from very good solo, to god like teamed. Buffing, controlling and the like is mostly a thankless job, and I dont begrudge anything that gives players willing to take those roles, a bump in enjoyment, when they are not spending their time trying to keep my constantly faceplanting Blaster alive.
I faill to see how making self-buffing possible in solo-play with 3/4 or even 1/2 of the regular numbers would be overpowered. It could work, and you could even limit some of the teamplay powers (such as mez protection) to teamplay. It's not that hard to come up with a solution for solo, it's getting people to think in that manner that is difficult.
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You touch a bit on why buffers are generally not allowed to buff themselves.|
Originally Posted by TrainRobber
I just dont get the argument against this. Especially the fear of tank mages. The game is full of tank mages now. The game is completly different than it used to be, for the most part, for the good. I never understand people who jump up and tell you to play a solo intended character, that line is long blurred in this game. Everyone wants a buffer, but then tell them, that when they do solo, they should grin and bear it, while they play their scrappers, brutes, tanks whenever they want, with almost zero downside in any mission they run.
I dont like the argument that the character AT I chose is always supposed to be good, the one you chose is supposed to be good sometimes and less good others. Melees go from very good solo, to god like teamed. Buffing, controlling and the like is mostly a thankless job, and I dont begrudge anything that gives players willing to take those roles, a bump in enjoyment, when they are not spending their time trying to keep my constantly faceplanting Blaster alive. |
Why do melee classes get so much better on a team? It's not anything inherent to teams; a team of eight scrappers/brutes does less than eight times the amount of damage any one of them would do, due to a lack of target saturation and the occasional casualty. Even on a single hard target, they're barely doing more than eight times the damage of any one of them, with relatively minor buffs or debuffs to grant each other.
The reason they do better on a team is because they're teamed with support sets. Support sets are the strongest sets in the game. While damage scales more or less linearly and control has diminishing returns (since mezzing an enemy two different ways is rarely useful), support sets have a multiplicative effect. Even Poison, the worst support set in the game, lets you solo GMs. Masterminds have been soloing AVs and GMs for ages because buffs plus someone to use buffs on equals victory, even if that "someone" is a hopeless gimp by PC standards. Even setting aside how self-buffing would throw Empathy completely out of whack, this would be a huge buff to Kins and Colds, and those are already arguably two of the strongest powersets in the entire game.
Indeed, those defenders, corruptors, and controllers who can take full advantage of their own buffs/debuffs, like Dark Miasma, Traps, and Radiation Emission, have been soloing AVs and GMs for as long as people have been soloing AVs and GMs. (So have Kins and Colds, even without the benefit of their selfless powers.) This is despite defenders, controllers, and corruptors having some of the worst base damage in the game.
If someone were planning to make a new City of Heroes (or redesign ATs and powersets in a way that tossed the cottage rule completely out the window), it'd probably be wise to take a long, hard look at the whole concept of some ATs getting to be force multipliers at the cost of being more or less selfless while some ATs (theoretically) rely on those force multipliers to effectively handle level-appropriate opposition. This game is too old and its playerbase too conservative to allow for that kind of radical revision, though.
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This is my dream if CoH2 ever comes out. I'd like to see a system where all characters have relatively similar solo capability but all characters provide force multiplication.
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Originally Posted by A Man In Black
If someone were planning to make a new City of Heroes (or redesign ATs and powersets in a way that tossed the cottage rule completely out the window), it'd probably be wise to take a long, hard look at the whole concept of some ATs getting to be force multipliers at the cost of being more or less selfless while some ATs (theoretically) rely on those force multipliers to effectively handle level-appropriate opposition.
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As others have said its simply the way the game is being run.
They dont want corruptors or defenders being actualy competent like comic book super heroes and villains.
I think they want them to remain side kicks that force everyone else to protect them.
Dont worry think of your self like Orko fromthe HeMan Cartoon...or maybe Snarf from the Thundercats...Twiki from Buck Rogers...or how about one of Dr. Who's Companions.(Not Ace though, and not Captain jack either)
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Originally Posted by Chaos Creator
Because being a tank mage is bad.
ex; Fire/Cold corruptor Would approach the softcap to most damage positions. all while keeping the same high damage and excellent debuffs. Without any set bonuses. This is the very definition of too strong. |
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Originally Posted by Obscure Blade
Buff powers like these are balanced around only working on others; if they were changed to work on you they'd be seriously nerfed.
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Empathy.
Seriously, Empathy would become the most overpowered set in the game if you could buff yourself with it. |
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My Traps/Sonic doesn't feel like Snarf when she solo's AV's. Nor does my Fire/Storm corr feel like Orko when she pretty much solos itfs. Meh :P
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Originally Posted by PsychicKitty
Dont worry think of your self like Orko fromthe HeMan Cartoon...or maybe Snarf from the Thundercats...Twiki from Buck Rogers...or how about one of Dr. Who's Companions.(Not Ace though, and not Captain jack either)
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<:[ shark goes nom nom nom ]:>
[QUOTE=theOcho;3409811]As to the REAL reason I'll be leaving, I'm afraid it is indeed because Tamaki Revolution dc'd on me during a RSF.[/QUOTE]
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Its a shame if you feel incompetent on your corrs or defenders. I have been a melee guy for 6.75 years. My fire/traps is easily my most powerfull and versitile toon. My fire/cold isnt far behind.
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Originally Posted by PsychicKitty
They dont want corruptors or defenders being actualy competent like comic book super heroes and villains.
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My Cold/Ice, Rad.Rad and Rad/Sonic defenders disagree whole heartedly.|
Originally Posted by PsychicKitty
As others have said its simply the way the game is being run.
They dont want corruptors or defenders being actualy competent like comic book super heroes and villains. I think they want them to remain side kicks that force everyone else to protect them. Dont worry think of your self like Orko fromthe HeMan Cartoon...or maybe Snarf from the Thundercats...Twiki from Buck Rogers...or how about one of Dr. Who's Companions.(Not Ace though, and not Captain jack either) |
As does my Dark/Sonic Corruptor. My DP/TA Corruptor is still thinking about it...
The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.
If numbers are so much more important than a teammate who is fun to play with, forget about the game altogether and go play with a calculator instead. -Claws and Effect-
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Run on all defender, controller, or corr teams and tell me it's not overpowered.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Simple question here, being able to self buff is O.P. why isn't 2 of the same as a duo over powered?
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EDIT: One of the more broken combos in the game is Emp/sonics teamed up.
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Because Force Multiplication is the entire point. There is balanced for a team and balanced for soloing.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Simple question here, being able to self buff is O.P. why isn't 2 of the same as a duo over powered?
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That duo? it requires two accounts to work together.
Why team at all if you're stronger by yourself?
Force Multiplication is an excellent incentive to teaming.
But even if you become invincible, you still have the issues of aggro control and damage dealing. Will Empathy become more powerful for soloing than other defender primaries? yes. Will it become better than the current best soloers? No. SS/FA Brutes will still reign supreme.
Fortitude is a 30% damage buff for Defenders, correct? If you take that, and add the 30% solo damage buff Defenders get now, then add Assault's 18.5% damage buff, you end up with a 78.5% damage buff, with no outside help at all. That is also before any damage set bonuses are taken into account.
You will be easily outdamaging a Corruptor, and you'll be creeping up on Blaster level damage output. I'd hardly call that "issues with damage dealing"
Have YOU seen a Night Widow that can do that? Because that's what a self-buffing Empath would be doing.
It's not just the ability to do something, it's the AMOUNT of that ability that determines whether something is overpowered.
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.