Unanswered Pummit Questions

Random thought regarding Blasters...

100% + 2% per level mez resistance (essentially, 1/3 duration on mez at level 50).

0.1 point of mez protection against Stun, Sleep, Hold, or Fear for each +dam% in the Defiance line item for their powers, for the same duration as the damage buff.

This means that you have to build up mez protection, but you can do that with your lower tier attacks (t1 primary is +.66 protection, t2 primary is +1.1) if the mobs start with a mez - and the resistance is there to shorten how long your other powers aren't usable. This makes stacked mezzes still an issue due to low magnitude, and the duration on the protection isn't long but you can literally blast your way out of a mez (making Defiance actually mean defiant!) and the resistance means that you're less affected than other squishies regardless.

Immobilize, Knockback, and Confuse are issues that you can build or adjust to play around (Combat Jumping, IOs, killing teammates for giggles).

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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

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Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

The thing that I personally really dislike about CoH's Mez System is its excessively boolean nature. You're either Mezzed ... or you're not. You're Sleeping ... or not Sleeping. You're Held ... or not Held. That "purity" of boolean conditionals means that there really no way to "degrade performance" through application of Mez in a way that isn't *JUST* a complete On/Off switch.

This winds up causing really weird game mechanics ... or making obvious a lack of complimentary game mechanics. Things like Sleep ought to debuff recharge, even if the target isn't Slept by sufficient Mag. Holds ought to debuff recovery, even if the target isn't Held by sufficient Mag. And so on and so forth. Sometimes we'll see things like Immobilizes will also have recharge and/or movement speed debuffs ... but never in the sizes and quantity to be able to synergize these things together in the event that the combined Mag is insufficient so as to create a very noticeable "degrading of performance" effect when the primary Mez is inadequate to overcome Mez Protection.

And then sometimes you get really off-the-wall "what were they thinking" sorts of things, like Trick Arrow's Flash Arrow ... which has an Unresistable ToHit Debuff ... that is comparatively "powerful" against AVs, and pretty much completely worthless in the remaining 99% of the game. Suffice it to say, that Flash Arrow is no Hurricane when it comes to debuffing potential!



I just wish that the Mez System used by CoH wasn't quite so ... simplistic ... and boolean in nature. As it is, it's almost impossible to represent "partial effectiveness" with Mez powers, and even with Debuffs, it's often difficult to determine (in gameplay, by FEEL) what effects your Debuffs are having (if any at all). Debuffs tend to be better at dealing with "partial" effectiveness, unlike Mez effects, but that's often only because Debuffs tend to NOT be all-or-nothing boolean styled effects on gameplay.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

I think the entire mez system should be based on the idea behind Defiance- a gradual loss of powers, instead of all or nothing. Every power could be labelled Level 1, 2 or 3, Level 1 being their most basic attacks. Most holds and stuns would have a good chance of cancelling use of the Level 3 powers (depending on Archetype), stacked or more powerful mezzed would cancel Level 2 powers, and only the most powerful would completely cancel every power.

"This is why a certain super guy can be on the same "team" as a guy who dresses like a bat."


This is a bit of a red herring. Batman uses trick to achieve the same goals that Superman accomplishes with brute force.

the stacks of assassin buff like sounds kind of like stj combo shenigans.

On Status:
As Samuel Tow touched on, 'defeat' is a binary status effect in this game. Either an enemy is defeated, or they are just as dangerous as when they were fresh as a daisy (fleeing bosses nothwithstanding).

The only thing that isn't binary in this game is debuffs.

Now I could imagine changing things so that enemies (and of course players) debuff themselves as they become damaged or as mezzes stack below the effect threshold, but that would also require rebalancing all of the combat in the game.

I also agree that it is thematic to be able to defeat an opponent with a mez. I actually see that as something you could implement here without much problem. The game already knows whether you have 0 or 50 stacks of mez beyond your threshold anyway. As to whether it could be implemented in a way that impacted the average fight without the gamewide rebalancing? That's more of a conundrum.

On Tanks:

Well, of course, the reason that the bad guy doesn't just shoot the squishy standing next to the tank is just story drama, but I also see lots of stories where the tank explicitly stands between the team and incoming fire. Somehow, the hail of bullets finds the tanker's chest instead of slipping by (unless of course that is the point of the story). Taunting is supposed to emulate the tanker being in the way of the shot, as well as being targeted due to seeming like a priority threat.

I'd love to see tankers emit a melee-ranged +def zone/aura for their allies. It would simulate the tank interposing themselves between the ally and the incoming damage. Just an idea I trot out every once in awhile. I'd love to see a team clustering around the tank rather than giving them wide berth when the AoEs start flying.

That's a pretty interesting way of thinking about it, actually. Please understand that what I say from this point on is in no way intended to invalidate your view point, as it really is one I hadn't thought of. This is just things that strike me about how Tankers are designed from a conceptual standpoint.

What you describe in terms of the threat a Tanker represents, while an impressive spin on the situation, still leaves them as more of an inconvenience than an actual threat. A Tanker will slow you, hamper you, stagger you and essentially bite at your ankles while the others on his team actually kill you. This works in practice, but in concept it transforms Tankers from a threat to an irritation. I suppose that's par for the course of Taunt, as the way the game mechanic is implemented, it seems like that's what a Tanker seems to do - he irritates people and they want to kill him. So rabid is their rage they don't notice they're not making much of a dent.

The reason I speak about more Tanker damage to enemies not engaging the Tanker (or ANY Tanker) is because I want them to be seen as a legitimate threat. Not "You can ignore him but he'll distract you" but rather "Go ahead and ignore him. I dare you."

To give you an example, a Tanker should be like a WW2 machinegun. Think back to WW1 trench warfare and the role machineguns played in that. If you charged a machinegun nest with basic infantry, you'd get shredded nearly immediately. However, the machinegun's biggest strength isn't that it kills so much that it keeps people pinned down. No-one is going to be dumb enough to charge a machine gun nest with infantry exactly BECAUSE they'd get cut up if they did. You try to flank it, you try to lob grenades into it or you hope for artillery.

Essentially, that's what I want the Tanker to be. I want the Tanker to keep enemies pinned down so they don't have a chance to attack his team-mates. If the enemies keep their heads down and keep attacking the Tanker, it's a stalemate - he can't kill them, they can't kill him. But the moment they turn around to fight someone else, it's their funeral. You do not turn your back on the Tanker.

This really isn't represented in-game. In-game, enemies really suffer no ill effects for ignoring the Tanker and only attack him because they're compelled to.

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Not that there's anything wrong with how you see things. If you can explain Tankers and play them, more power to you. I'm glad you can enjoy the AT.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Problem with that approach is, to make such a feature tangible to that concept, it'd most likely need to be drastic to be noticeable but even if it's not, it'd be exploitable.

Turning to the machine gun example: yeah, it's something you don't want to charge. It's there to make sure of that. Now give the WW2 soldiers a means to make that machine gun invisible or put controllable rockets on it so you can zip it around the enemy or just position a whole bunch everywhere or all of the above. You don't want to charge the machine gun but you don't know you are if it's invisible or if it's zipping around the battle field, it can just pop in and out of the equation to the opposing forces' disadvantage or if you turn your attention to one machine gun, you're turning your back on another.

I think the main problem is the enemy AI. There's too many ways to make the enemy 'turn their back to the Tanker' possibly even to the disadvantage of Stalkers who should have such a mechanic. Dunno what'd I'd say if Tankers get some offensive advantage when the foes' back is turned but Stalkers wouldn't.

Then it sort of goes against the grain of what a Tanker wants to do. You should want more aggro not less.

Now, I want a mechanic that rewards my Stalker for having less aggro and killing foes while drawing less attention

Sounds like the simplest thing to do is to increase the Tanker's "Threat Multiplier" on everything they do. If it's currently 200% ... increase it to 300%. That sort of thing. If it's a Global Setting, adjust the Global.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

Give all Tankers a Miniaturized version of Grant Cover, and a stronger, slower version of KO Blow and I will be a happy fox.

Yes, I am agreeing with Johnny Butane.