What is your position on untyped damage in Incarnate content?
By
Aneko,
Posted on: 2011-08-23 20:16 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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You do realize, of course, that what you are describing here is the reason the attacks you mention were made that way in first place... right?|
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
That wasn't even really the point, it was just one example. The point is I was curious as to how people feel about magical damage types appearing out of thin air that we can't build resistance to. And even worse than that, even with beyond softcapped positional defense, it still doesn't matter. I guess these attacks aren't melee, ranged, OR aoe, so logically speaking I guess they don't exist at all! -_- And yet they'll ignore your stats and one shot you all the same.
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The design intent is to force EVERYONE to adapt (read: change) to the way the iTrials toss things at you. If a character were able to just stand there and ignore the damage (regardless of IOs and money spent) then it would trivialize the content all the faster... you know, like the rest of the game.
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Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
[...]the best way for the game to remain fair for everyone regardless of their opinion is if the game would simply follow the rules... By that I mean, follow the same rules all the time.
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Oh, but they do. Have you ever played a PnP game with someone that threw out the rule book? It's akin to playing pretend with a child who insists on winning. It isn't fun for anyone but the game master and those they've decided to cater to. I'll admit there's room for leeway, especially when it errs on the the side of fun.
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Originally Posted by Xzero45
The devs don't need to follow standard rules. It's their game.
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Know what happens when creating encounters that "follow all the rules"? The LRSF and STF. Try to remember them for what they were at the time, not what they are now after IOs, Incarnates, etc.|
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
The thing is though, that the rest of the game works just fine the way it is. I don't expect my Blaster to be as survivable as my scrapper in any situation when it comes to normal content and even other end game TF's. I'm not saying that Incarnate AV's shouldn't be tougher than the average bear, but I am saying that the survivability of the players they attack should not be discounted because that player got hit with teh wrath.
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In order for the content to be challenging to players with IOs, Incarnate abilities, level shifts, and multiple teams (and all those fun force multipliers) the encounters would have to be even more extreme than in the STF/LRSF. That would make it harder for teams that don't min/max than if there is "cheating" (which makes things harder for min/maxers since they just power through / ignore mechanics).
[edit: Don't get me wrong, I liked the STF, even at the time - I'm just trying to demonstrate what would happen in terms of damage/tohit getting ridiculous.]
I love the way it's been implemented.
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I have no issues with it.
Of course, I'm still bugged that void damage against Kheldies isn't untyped anymore.
The game ends at 50.
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The developers made it very clear that when they were designing incarnate content that their goals were to:
- Create content that required players to change strategies
- Create content that required players to work together
- Create content that would make normally skipped powers valuable
Let me put it this way. The Rebirth Incarnate Power has a recharge time of 120 seconds. The AOE pulse has a recharge time of 30 seconds. So all it takes is 4 players with Rebirth who can cancel out the effects of the pulse.
Yes, that means the teams and players need to work together, organizing and coordinating rebirth placements and gathering's... but that's not really hard with tools like League Focus Group available. Just put the players who have rebirth into a focus group. On pulse, click on the designated rebirther... hit F... and hey, guess what, you can all gather up nice and easy to heal. Not really that hard.
Another case where swappable incarnate powers can have a clear benefit is in the B.A.F. trial. What exactly would be the result of an entire team slotting in Gravitic Interface? Oh yeah, enemies would have a drastic speed reduction, making it easier for lower-damage groups to take out the minions while spikers get the lewy's. Again, this just requires thinking outside of the omg, dps i5 k1ng mentality.
Like it or not the developers have decided that Incarnate Content will not be subject to the play-styles and mentalities largely used throughout the rest of the game. Untyped damage is one of the tools the developers have available that forces the players to change how those players approach the game.
Whether or not somebody likes that... isn't really a big deal. If you don't like Incarnate Content... don't run Incarnate Content.
In my opinion the nature of the Itrials (autohits, unresistable damages, etc) is quite possibly the only reason massive nerfs haven't occurred. The devs erred when they introduced defense bonuses on inventions sets. Flat out erred. They erred with Destiny buffs. They erred with team wide buffs. They erred with buffs being able to stack instead of the stronger buff over-riding weaker buffs.
It's impossible to balance the game any longer without the gimmicks, and has been for quite some time. Not without making encounters which either are snooze fests for the 'haves' and hard for the 'have nots', or encounters that are 'mildly difficult' for the haves and 'an exercise in futility' for the have nots.
Debuffs are worse than 'cheaty' powers, in my opinion. It's one thing, at least in my mind, to have special encounters which *ignore* all the hard work that's gone into building a powerful character. It's another to have encounters that actively strip away all that work. Plus, if you balanced around debuffs you'd leave the 'have nots' exactly where I said.
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I highly suspect that one of the upper tiers of Incarnate powers will infact give us a way to defend against untyped damage...
I also highly suspect that this upper tier will be even harder to get than T4 is now.
I also very highly suspect that we will be required to have said tier unlocked to even participate in The Coming Storm content...
(Heres to hoping my speculation isn't accurate)
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Most of it is avoidable. The one that I can think of that isn't, it is possible to heal back pretty quickly.
As with all content, as the playerbase adapts to the presented situations, the situations are trivialized. Terra Volta respec trial for instance.
The one thing that untyped, nonpositional damage can't beat? Being healed. Pop a green or use a heal power or have a heal power used on you. Buff your regen & hp. Keep the team together so that Destiny powers stack. The options are there, you just have to take them and use them.
Now if we only had a powerset that could heal teammates and buff their teammates' regen. That would be something...
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I still disagree with that. |
Originally Posted by Sarrate
My opinion?
The disparity between "survivable" and "unsurvivable" characters can be so large the game has to cheat in order to be fair - as odd as that sounds. For example, if Sequester could be avoided, people would become softcapped and ignore it. Prior to Incarnates, that's how I tanked the Patron AVs in the STF (at the same time). Soft cap, kill GW, profit. If the aoe damage pulse on Keyes was resistible energy damage, it would only tickle Elec Armor characters (esp Brutes/Tanks). Where does one set the damage on it? Just enough to threaten a Blaster wouldn't even dent the aforementioned Brutes, but high enough to threaten them would be one shotting anyone who wasn't one... or wasn't resistance hard capped... Actually, to take off half the health of a res hard capped Brute with Accolades (so 900 dmg after resists), it would deal 2250 at 75% res. Of the ATs with 75% res cap, only Scrappers could have enough health to not be one shot. |
Obviously you couldn't do direct ports of the content that is already there in itrials and expect it to work with mere number tweaks, but it is possible to make extremely challenging AE missions without breaking the rules.
More importantly, if you lessen the melee survivability advantage so significantly, there is little point to play melee, rather than ranged with all the advantages that come with that.
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| Know what happens when creating encounters that "follow all the rules"? The LRSF and STF. Try to remember them for what they were at the time, not what they are now after IOs, Incarnates, etc. |
Despite not cheating, it was also harder than trials ever were - that much should be obvious as american servers took ages to first beat it, whereas the trials were completed on day 1 for every server. It was a challenge and the right kind of challenge, something that kept us coming back every evening for another attempt despite the very real possibility, during those first few weeks, of failure and not getting anything.
I can have some perspective as well and I remember the amount of people whining about it on the boards, and, yes, it's probably nowhere near as much as the amount of people complaining about trials. I'd agree with a hypothetical claim saying the ratio of people liking the LRSF compared to people hating the LRSF was much smaller than the ratio of people liking trials compared to people hating trials.
So if you want to argue the way the devs do it is good for the game, maybe it is. However, I don't think this sort of design is good *as* a game.
I don't truly believe it evens the gap between minmaxers and regular joes, unless you lump in people who just copy builds without really understanding anything into the "minmaxer" category, and people who have a profound understanding of the game and good playstyle despite not caring about numbers specifically to be "regular joes". It's not like those unresistable mechanics can't be avoided, the whole point is that you can avoid them, so you can still minmax and trivialise the trials, just in a different way than usual.
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A much smaller percentage of people even had level 50s back then to try it. I remember not even being allowed on any LRSF runs back then (lol@stalker), because it was pretty much just 1 Brute, and 6-7 buffing corruptors (maybe a pity spot!)| I can have some perspective as well and I remember the amount of people whining about it on the boards, and, yes, it's probably nowhere near as much as the amount of people complaining about trials. I'd agree with a hypothetical claim saying the ratio of people liking the LRSF compared to people hating the LRSF was much smaller than the ratio of people liking trials compared to people hating trials. |
I'd say I like the new mechanics/gimmicks. Before, all you had to do was SMASH and that'd solve any problems. If SMASH doesn't work, obviously you just need more SMASH! Now, at least you gotta pay a little attention, and you'll be fine, but actually having to pay some attention is IMO a nice improvement... being able to alt-tab out of CoH and read the forums every time I was mid animation, only going back long enough to queue the next power (or move to the next enemy if needed) is an experience I'm kinda tired of.
It would be quite hard for the computer to play by the rules, but also be a challenge, considering how many buffs are being thrown out there, especially thanks to the AoE buffing now. I don't want to see everything as untyped, positionless damage, but I do like it as something to keep you on your feet (I've not done Keyes yet, so I can't say how I feel about the execution in that one).
And, really, untyped positionless damage isn't really any different than an attack doing absurdly large amounts of damage (that even at the Tanker HP & Res cap would be at 1 HP after) combined with an absurdly high accuracy, in effect. One of them is just more even than the other.
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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You're asking.|
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
I just wanted to hear some more opinions on this... Personally, I believe that *all* damage should be typed. I find it unfair that someone who invests a lot into a good build, both inf. wise and time wise, is just as likely to be one shotted by <super Incarnate NPC power> as someone who uses SO's. What some people would call challenging I would call cheating.
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Because you want to hear.
And then state that untyped damage is *unfair*.
This means anyone who disagrees with you is now arguing for something that is *unfair* -- in your opinion.
So when anyone does take the opposing side, you immediately argue with them.
So much for wanting to hear.
It's not *unfair* and it's not *cheating* as much as you would like us all to cry out "unfair!" as we take up our pitchforks and storm Paragon Studios and make them change it so that Incarnate fights are as ridiculously easy as taking out Hopkins.
Hami Raids on Virtue can take as little as 10 minutes once Hami is spawned. Lambda has speed runs. BAF is a speed run. As much as people moan about Keyes, it gets done with people running around in all directions not knowing what they're doing.
And you want it to be easier?
Or you want it to be easier... for *you*?
When iTrials were introduced and people thought they were impossible to do (!), it was because those who liked to solo or practically solo content (run off on their own) found out they couldn't solo it... they needed a team. So, their real argument was against not being able to run off by themselves. Too bad. When working as a team, the iTrials are still trivially easy, even with untyped or undodgeable attacks.
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By and large, this shouldn't happen. I am pretty sure there are no uninterruptable attacks in the game that last as long as the time between when you get the warning and when Marauder actually begins animating the attack. (If you trigger one of those amazingly long interruptable attacks, you can, well, interrupt it to run away.)|
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
Except when you happen to be mid animation when it goes off. -_-
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I am not a fan of un-typed damage, but it serves a purpose. By definition, you have nothing that will mitigate such damage directly. The general purpose of introducing such damage is to get you to either avoid it (as in the case of Nova Fist) or to force you to deal with it reactively (as in the case of the antimatter pulses in the Keyes trial). In the context of this game, reactive mitigation to such damage usually means healing and/or (high) regeneration. Someone who worked on the Keyes trial seems to have wanted very much for leagues there to emphasize healing or +regeneration powers.
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| I don't see why these attacks shouldn't work like the attacks in the rest of the game. I can understand them being high damage, sure, but one shotting someone with capped resists? It really just feels like cheating. |
The question is how do the devs structure the "cheatiness" of the NPCs so that it's both challenging and fun. Not everyone will agree that certain things are fun.
The 9CU bosses in the BAF are actually very "cheaty". They get +toHit and +damage bonuses that last incredibly long and self stack. If you don't keep wiping them out, they will attain numbers and levels of deadliness that a league cannot survive. There's a part of me that rankles at this ability of theirs, which is difficult to justify in the larger context of the game setting. But it forces most leagues to deal with them, instead of just DPSing the AVs. Because avoiding a catastrophic outcome is well within the ability of most leagues, I think this is a decent kind of added challenge. So long as your league actually spends some effort on it, the added challenge is manageable.
I find Nova Fist to be similar. It's a cheaty power, but I've never had any serious problem avoiding it. Even when hit by it, I usually survive unless it happens while I am also under heavy fire from IDF reinforcements - something that usually only happens during "Master Of" badge runs where we can't close reinforcement summoning doors.
For me, Keyes is overly "cheaty". It's like they took every trick they had thought of for other Incarnate content, threw them in a blender, and added a few more on top. The result is too busy for me, with too many NPC cheater effects going on at once in the final fight.
Untyped damage is just one of many ways the NPCs can "cheat". I think it has its place, and can be used in ways that aren't overbearing. For me, Nova Fist is a decent example of this. Some others feel overbearing to me. I used to feel that Hamidon was overbearing about this, but nowadays I've run it so many times, I mostly no longer care - the workarounds are well-worn gloves at this point.
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I said I wanted to hear what people thought, I didn't know that meant I was obligated to agree with everything everyone says.|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
You're asking.
Because you want to hear. And then state that untyped damage is *unfair*. This means anyone who disagrees with you is now arguing for something that is *unfair* -- in your opinion. So when anyone does take the opposing side, you immediately argue with them. So much for wanting to hear. |
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| It's not *unfair* and it's not *cheating* as much as you would like us all to cry out "unfair!" as we take up our pitchforks and storm Paragon Studios and make them change it so that Incarnate fights are as ridiculously easy as taking out Hopkins. |
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Hami Raids on Virtue can take as little as 10 minutes once Hami is spawned. Lambda has speed runs. BAF is a speed run. As much as people moan about Keyes, it gets done with people running around in all directions not knowing what they're doing. And you want it to be easier? Or you want it to be easier... for *you*? |
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| When iTrials were introduced and people thought they were impossible to do (!), it was because those who liked to solo or practically solo content (run off on their own) found out they couldn't solo it... they needed a team. So, their real argument was against not being able to run off by themselves. Too bad. When working as a team, the iTrials are still trivially easy, even with untyped or undodgeable attacks. |
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No, that's exactly where it becomes unfair. I don't believe that any attacks should exist that do just as much damage to a tank as they do to a blaster unless it's something that the tank has no resistance and no defense to- We have exotic damage types in the rest of the game for exactly that reason. I do not think it's okay for someone who's spent billions of inf. softcapping a position (or even all three) and building up good resists to most damage to ever encounter a situation where they are just as survivable as Joe Blaster with an SO build. To me, it negates not only the hard work people have put into their builds... It contradicts the fundamentals of having archetypes in the first place.
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Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven
Funny... isn't the mechanic of untyped, unresistable damage actually putting EVERY character on the same tier... thus equalizing the playing field? Which is what you seem to want. There is no character that has more of a chance to dodge that damage than any other, regardless of AT or anything else. It is up to the player to act in a way to mitigate the damage, no character is given an advantage. Can't get much "fairer" than that.
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Since there's no situation where all the damage coming in will be unresistable (again, not played Keyes yet, but fairly certain that one holds as well), the billion inf build will still have an advantage, and be more survivable (except for the next point making the billion inf build largely moot).
And, quite frankly, most of the league will likely be soft capped anyways, and maybe even res capped, thanks to all the buffs flying around in the iTrials (and I suspect future ones will be at least as large, if not larger!), meaning the performance delta would have been tiny anyways. The untyped damage isn't so much because of the multi-billion inf builds as it is the massive quantity of buffs flying around, and the force multiplication nature of CoH.
Untyped damage has been part of CoH since pretty much the beginning (Voids had untyped damage back in i3, Full Auto had untyped possibly even back at launch), it's not exactly cheating, just rare.
Would you be happy if they changed it from untyped to auto-hit unresistable damage?
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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I think it would be better if people were encouraged to use things like barrier strategically, ie: Wait to cast it until the Nova Fist warning comes up. |
Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
Since there's no situation where all the damage coming in will be unresistable (again, not played Keyes yet, but fairly certain that one holds as well), the billion inf build will still have an advantage, and be more survivable (except for the next point making the billion inf build largely moot).
And, quite frankly, most of the league will likely be soft capped anyways, and maybe even res capped, thanks to all the buffs flying around in the iTrials (and I suspect future ones will be at least as large, if not larger!), meaning the performance delta would have been tiny anyways. The untyped damage isn't so much because of the multi-billion inf builds as it is the massive quantity of buffs flying around, and the force multiplication nature of CoH. |
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Untyped damage has been part of CoH since pretty much the beginning (Voids had untyped damage back in i3, Full Auto had untyped possibly even back at launch), it's not exactly cheating, just rare. Would you be happy if they changed it from untyped to auto-hit unresistable damage? |
I already gave my idea as to how I think these attacks should work:
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Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
Well what I would prefer is for their special attacks to do something like a 30% resistance debuff and a 20% defense debuff in the same AOE radius that they are currently, do 10-20% more damage than standard AV's "heavy hitting attacks," and on top of that be part s/l and part exotic damage... ie: toxic or psi. They are exotic damages for a reason, because most players are hit hard by them. They still follow the rules, though. Also perhaps in some scenarios, add a Regen debuff to the heavy hitting attacks.
And Incarnate AV's have a higher to-hit than most enemies, so the softcap alone, which most people do not build past, would not be enough to guarantee that no damage is taken. This would still make them very powerful attacks while following the rules of the game, ie: they will affect squishies more than non-squishies and player stats will still be taken into account in terms of how much damage is taken while letting them remain more powerful and therefore more challenging than other enemies in the game. |
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Technically it wasn't untyped (it was Nictus damage), but it was changed to Negative because they needed a new damage type for Hamidon, and they were already at the cap for types of damage. You'd have to ask the devs if fairness had anything to do with it, but at the time they implied that wasn't the reasoning (by explicitly saying they needed the damage type for Hami).|
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
And you just gave examples of untyped damage that was removed from the game because it was deemed unfair, right?
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| The debuffs would account for the massive buffs and expensive builds, while still being relative to individual character survivability. |
Toxic/Psi might not have many res buffs to limit them (unless they're positionless, which you already poo-pooed, defense will still help stop them), but I can't quite see much of a difference between making everything toxic/psi and making things untyped. These aren't the bread and butter attacks, these are the special abilities that are backed by special mechanics.
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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i know your advocating more debuffs, however, all you need is a bunch of people spamming agelss destiny (the tree of which gives debuff resistance)
2 of those and your hardcapped to ALL debuffs, -50% def does verry little when you have 95% DDR and hardcapped defense due to buffs anyway
unresistable dmg is a way to make that more fair
no im not an advocate for autohit unresistable dmg as that is going a little too far, but one or the other is plenty enough to give the AV some leverage
for example the obliteration beam during final fight in keyes trial is unresistable dmg (and can hurt PA and untouchable lore pets), but its also avoidable, if you fail to move then you take the dmg and be more careful
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I wasn't aware of that but I still think there's a strong case as to how fair it would be for voids to do unresistable damage. |
Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
Technically it wasn't untyped (it was Nictus damage), but it was changed to Negative because they needed a new damage type for Hamidon, and they were already at the cap for types of damage. You'd have to ask the devs if fairness had anything to do with it, but at the time they implied that wasn't the reasoning (by explicitly saying they needed the damage type for Hami).
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| But those numbers are quite puny, with the amount of Defense/Resistance buffs, no one will notice! With all the buffs flying around, you really don't notice the difference that much between an SO build and a max-inf build with purples and pvp-IOs out the whazoo, because the difference is tiny in comparison to the size of the buffs. |
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| Toxic/Psi might not have many res buffs to limit them (unless they're positionless, which you already poo-pooed, defense will still help stop them), but I can't quite see much of a difference between making everything toxic/psi and making things untyped. These aren't the bread and butter attacks, these are the special abilities that are backed by special mechanics. |
edit: Another thing to consider is that I'm suggesting these attacks be AOE, which is probably the least viable position for a character who isn't starting with a good amount of AOE defense to build for. This would leave the more survivable defensive sets like Shields and Stone at an advantage, which is how it should be... But when you go from 45% defense to 25% defense, and you're losing 30% of that exotic resistance you probably don't have much (if any) of in the first place, you're still going to be hit hard. This would also encourage people to be more mindful of their teammates, the sets they're playing, and to get a better idea of how exactly they function. If you're playing a buff set, you'll want to make sure you apply the right buffs at the right time. I notice this is a bit of a problem already, people not being mindful of what other players are bringing to the table. Last night I did a BAF, and the league leader put someone who was playing Rad on the add's team when we were already having trouble with the AV's regenerating. I feel this would be a good way to encourage people to be more mindful of their teammates, while following the rules of the game and still providing a challenging environment.
Right now the playing field is equal. You are wishing it to be unequal.
How fair is that?
Pulse, Nova Fist, Rings - all scaled to AT health totals. Each AT is hit equally, it doesn't matter that they have spent billions on their characters everybody is equal.
Yes, unavoidable damage is cruel. Deal with it. Grab green inspirations, TELL someone to heal you.
If you are not getting buffed, again - TELL them to buff you if you cannot survive.
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Originally Posted by Wavicle
CoH players are stupid and incompetent compared to WoW players.
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Originally Posted by War-Nugget
Right now the playing field is equal. You are wishing it to be unequal.
How fair is that? Pulse, Nova Fist, Rings - all scaled to AT health totals. Each AT is hit equally, it doesn't matter that they have spent billions on their characters everybody is equal. Yes, unavoidable damage is cruel. Deal with it. Grab green inspirations, TELL someone to heal you. If you are not getting buffed, again - TELL them to buff you if you cannot survive. |
How is it unfair for tanks to be more survivable than blasters?
But at the moment it is equal across all AT.
All the Defenders and Tanks take a OHKO+1HP attack in Lambda.
All the Defenders and Tanks take a 50% attack to their health every 30 seconds in Keyes.
If vectors and types were added to the attacks, yes tanks would survive more than defenders. Right now, it does not matter that you are a tank or that you are a defender. Your tank gets damaged as much as someone elses defender.
@War-Nugget
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Originally Posted by Wavicle
CoH players are stupid and incompetent compared to WoW players.
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The devs don't need to follow standard rules. It's their game.
As to the nuclear warhead bit, not every super/meta/hero is so insanely powerful as to survive an atomic explosion. In fact, unless you're a level 50, completely IO'd and Incarnate'd out tanker or brute, I'd wager you'd have no chance of survival.
My opinion on the subject? This adds something unique and gives it a little bit of challenge that folks will just have to adapt to. Keep 'em on their toes and make them think up new strategies that aren't "Well, how much money can I throw at this challenge until I can overpower it?"