Traps, Devices and the "out of combat" concept

I think that would also be a valid method of balancing travel powers that are usable in combat. Honestly, I thought that was the case in the first place-- jousting increases safety, but dramatically reduces DPS. (I'm not saying I think it was designed that way, but that we had built-in penalties for using travel powers in combat to reduce risk.)

We were once told that there were several PvE reasons for Travel Suppression, and I think the only one given was regarding risk reduction (and I don't recall any mention of the DPS loss it takes to do that). Do you know anything about the reasons why Travel Suppression was put into place, and do you have opinions on whether it should remain in place, and why?

Note that I don't particularly have a desire for jousting myself, but prior to Issue 4, I had a speedster character that felt like a speedster, capable of running between targets and chasing runners at superhuman speed.

This may be viewed as a tangent, but I believe it to be related to the "out of combat" concept.

That's precisely where most of my problems come from, as well, especially for so-called "situational" powers - they don't actually offer the best reward rate even in their specific situations. I did my darnest to use Trip Mines as designed - lay down a field of them, pull a spawn into it. It worked, but I could never do enough damage with the mines to justify the time it took to lay them, the time it took to pull into them and the time it took to find a place to pull to. You'd think there's always a corner to pull to, but in a large open field, that's not always the case.

Same for Snipes - I realised I could do more damage in less time with regular attacks than I could with a snipe in quite a few Blast set, leaving range as its only benefit, which is not very helpful. So even in situations applicable for a snipe - beginning of battle, first attack - I was still better off using something else, and actually using the Snipe made me kill slower. Yes, it might kill a specific enemy faster, but over an entire spawn, especially a larger one, what with Blasters being good at AoE and all, it just didn't work out very well.

My response to this would be "Something that's non-zero, but far below the average expected reward rate." I've never had a problem with letting people cheat by trading time for success, because at the end of the day, they are only cheating themselves. If you're forced to go get a Shivan, forced to leave and level up, forced go buy better enhancements or, indeed, forced to corner-pull every enemy, you've already lost. "Success" in this game counts very little on its own, it's all a question of how fast you can succeed and how quickly you can amass rewards. When you're forced to adopt tactics that slow your speed of progression significantly, then you're already suffering. The game doesn't need to punish you any more than that.

The great irony about my hatred for Blasters is it was never focused around being unable to solo them. All of the ones I made were fully capable of completing all the missions I put them though. The problem was they took forever, they died a lot and everything was far harder than with all of my characters. As a result, my Blasters ended up levelling at a glacial pace compared to my Scrappers and Brutes. The Blasters were beating every mission, yet they still failed overall, because they levelled up so slowly I became physically uncomfortable with playing one right around when I rerolled all of mine.

As far as I'm concerned, giving "zero" reward for anything in this game is a mistake. Throw people a bone, make them feel like even in failure, their time hasn't been completely wasted. Sure, they may not have done much, but they did SOMETHING. They are NOT as far ahead as they would have been if they'd never logged on that day.

I actually have something of a problem with designing a powerset or an AT to have weaknesses built into it balanced by the intent that NPC enemies won't have the ability to exploit those weaknesses very often. On paper, this should work... And then another powers designer comes along, disregards or misinterprets the original AT designer's intention and makes a whole bunch of enemies with status effects and psi damage to the point where those "rare weaknesses" turn into common dangers and more or less tank an entire AT. Otherwise known as "welcome to Praetoria."

One of the reasons, I feel, that Scrappers and Brutes are so popular is that their strengths and weaknesses really don't hinge on their enemies all that much. Sure, some enemies are tougher for melee than others (Rogue Vanguard come to mind), but none of them are really quite so horrible. The thing is, Brutes and Scrappers have both the hit points and the defences to absorb a lot of that danger, and while their margin for error diminishes and their pace suffers, very few things are actual real roadblocks. Some things are just tougher than others. Even when power designers create NPCs with seemingly no regard for what characters in the specific level range are actually expected to be capable of, Scrappers and Brutes can usually make up the difference and brute-force their way through the opposition anyway, whereas Blasters - being explicitly designed to die occasionally as part of their AT balance - find themselves just devastated.

Maybe that's just me, but if I had a choice, I'd always pick a character build that's ready for almost anything and has a reasonable shot at dealing with things he isn't ready for over a character who can beat some missions and eat dirt repeatedly in others.

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.

I don't think I'm being clear. The idea isn't to make range an advantage or a disadvantage. The idea is to recognize range's non-binary nature and balance within the different range regimes.

Or to put it more simply, given the fact that blasters were given multiple ranges and not just "range" we look at blasters, and we balance them (vs the critters) on the assumption critters are always at 80 feet, and never get any closer. *Then* we go again and balance them assuming critters materialize at 40 feet, and never get closer or farther away. *And then* we balance them *again* assuming critters are in melee range and never leave melee range.

We end up with blasters having the correct damage and mitigation at *all* ranges, so *all* ranges become valid options for blasters. None of them have any "special weaknesses" or "special strengths." Blasters would have the specific strengths they need to work properly at all ranges. They don't need any special weaknesses, because they are already possess all available weaknesses possible: low resistance, low defense, no mez protection, no heals, no regeneration, no health boosting.


Interesting food for thought question: what would the effect be if Blaster snipe's recharge was set to *zero*? In terms of DPA they have nearly the worst damage output of any blaster ranged attack. Even if you could cycle it over and over in normal combat you wouldn't because it would actually suck to do so, and that's before it starts getting interrupted.

The only circumstance this is remotely helpful within is the case when you're using it from extreme range and the critters (usually) can't shoot back. Here, you're in almost perfect safety but generating basically half the damage - single target only - you would be generating if you closed to 80 feet or less and started blasting with conventional attacks.

Is it worth killing half as fast - less than half as fast counting AoEs - to be killing from a safe distance. Keep in mind this is like being in perma-debt. In other words, using this tactic is worse than our current death penalty.

Interesting. And that's what I mean when I say: think about every range option separately when thinking about balancing blasters. Because the different range options are different, because the devs gave us different tools that work in those different ranges. And ask questions about whether each individual range option separately and by itself actually makes sense, or could be made to make sense, in light of how MMOs are actually supposed to be balanced: primarily around their reward earning rates. When I do that, some very interesting questsions come to mind that I don't hear people usually asking.

Question derrived from above: Would snipes be useful if after using one you got a global Range buff to all of your blasts for several seconds? Boost Range might make it all truly ridiculous, but I don't know if there is a cap on global Range boosts, being as its such a rare commodity.

500%

Edit: I should point out that just a bit beyond sniper range is normal visual range, so boosting beyond that point has the problematic issue that you can't see to target anything at that range. But I did once do an experiment with a friend where we unteamed (so we didn't share aggro) and then I targeted through her to a +7 boss at range-boosted sniper range and for a while the target just stood there getting hit because it had no idea where the damage was coming from. Then it began running in random directions. So long as she kept it in visual range and I kept at extreme range I could continue to fire through her targeting and hit the target from what was essentially another dimension.

I'd have to run some numbers to tell if there's a point, but I think the larger issue is that, if given a chance, I'd prefer for Snipes to not suck, rather than to give them benefits so the pain is more rewarding. I get that they're situational, but honestly? I'd rather they did twice the damage at twice the recharge and twice the cost. At least then in their situations, they at least make a difference. Because right now, Snipes "help a little," but they cost a lot in terms of opportunity cost.

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.

But what you are missing is that there are no generic enemies. A blaster which can one shot a minion might not one shot an epic boss that kills him. Or the blaster cannot one shot an lt that mezzes him. Or there are two minions who can mezz and he one shots one and the other mezzes him.

There are ways to try and balance this - situational powers. An attack that can take out an epic boss but only works once every 10 minutes. An attack that takes you a whole spawn (in case there are 2 mezzers) but only works every minute.

You simply let them defeat everything in their path by waiting for their power to recharge.

My Arcs
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Mission Architect Handyman

That right there is the heart of the problem. Blasters aren't "bad" as such. Hell, they're a million miles better than they were back at Launch when they had Controller hit points. Oh, yeah! Blasters aren't bad, the rest of the ATs just passed them by a long time ago. I think Inherent Stamina is the point where pretty much everything else I played essentially lapped Blasters and drove the point home. Brutes, who had previous been limited by the need for constant action hampered by insufficient endurance (I built without Stamina before) now became steamrollers. Scrappers who fought well but had to rest no longer had to keep stopping. And Masterminds are just... Cheaper buffs, cheaper upgrades, AoE buffs, AoE upgrades AND Stamina.

In the meantime, of all the problems my Blasters had, endurance wasn't even on the list. Stamina did jack squat for them, leaving me watching all of my other characters take off into awesomeness while my Blasters were stuck in the same old mire of making me terrified of even a single boss. A single boss, when my Brutes were taking on two or three at a time and not really concerning me all that much.

I'm sure in a more conservative interpretation, Blasters ARE balanced against the environment. They just aren't even remotely balanced against many of the other ATs.

That's a big part of the problem, yes. Even if we assumed that "situational" powers were amazingtastic at what they did, if their situations don't come up even remotely often, they still end up feeling like dead weight. If this game gave us a way to predict ambushes with enough time to set up a trap, THEN situational traps might be much more widely used. Hell, with as ambush-heavy as the game is these days, just spacing the ambushes out a bit so they don't stack with each other like they do in Praetoria could help make "traps" as a concept much more appealing. Really, at almost no point in the game can you tell that THIS is a good situation to lay traps and THIS is a good place to lay them until it's far, far too late to actually lay said traps.

I'm really not sure what the solution to this problem would be, such that it wouldn't be annoying for non-situational power use, but this is a big issue. You're never specifically given an opportunity to use these traps in response to your situation. You can only ever use them when the game is essentially paused and you have yet to start a fight. And, frankly, "pre-fight preparation" just isn't fun for me. I'm much rather be expected to think on my feet and react to circumstances, if given the chance. Traps can be made to do this even without "dumbing down" the powers if people are simply allowed to see ambushes coming with enough forewarning that they can lay at least SOME measure of a trap.

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.

Traps suggests to me preperation, and not reactive actions.

And whilst pre fight preperation isnt for you, some classes already have to do it (although they have resolved it for some powersets from single target to AoE buff's)...

Even without AoE buffs, you can still bubble people in combat. But the whole AoE buffs thing is kind of the rub, isn't it? That sort of preparation is slowly being phased out, and I've really not heard anything negative about any of the changes which are causing it.

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.

I think ambushes could stand to be handled better. Less dropping them on people's heads and more having them spawn around the corner and run to you so the player can capitalize on natural choke points. Also, most have speech when the spawn so perhaps an audio cue as well. I also feel there are some missions where you can get a vibe of when something is about to happen and prepare accordingly.

My Arcs
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Mission Architect Handyman

Once upon a time, I am fairly sure that "on your head" ambushes were quite a bit more rare. Spawning them in far-away places like other floors of a multi-floor map seemed much more common, and having an ambush appear in sight was considered odd and especially jarring. These days, I consider it odd when an ambush does appear far away from me, and standard to expect them to teleport into my immediate presence. I don't know when it changed, because it seems like the migration was gradual.

Now you're giving me flashbacks to Sister Airlia's mission to save Ghost Widow, where no fewer than there ambushes - one containing a Ballista - spawn directly on top of your location the moment you free Ghost Widow.

And, yes, that's sort of the problem. Ambushes only display a speech bubble if they spawn within draw distance. If they spawn too far away, all you get is NPC dialogue, which for the most part gets drowned out by combat spam on my setup. But even if I were able to spot ambushes as soon as they appear, I'd appreciate having the time to tell where they're coming from and where I should lay a mine.

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.

And that leads to the issues I've been having with the iTrials. They are newly designed, yet in some cases using the staple powers in Traps such as Poison Trap and Acid Mortar will get you killed. Now I can understand not always being able to use "situational" powers such as Trip Mine, but not your bread and butter.

Here's the only point of reference we have. Back before D2.0, a lot of people asked the same question, and *many* players stated that there was basically no chance blasters were underperforming compared to, say, defenders or tankers, or stalkers. Turns out according to datamining which prompted the Defiance 2.0 changes:

1. Blasters were underperforming everything.

2. That included all blaster primary/secondary powerset combinations, not just the ones people thought were the worst.

3. Every such powerset combination underperformed the average of all players by a substantial enough margin to prompt the devs to look at blasters as a priority.

4. You could not say this about *any* other archetype at the time. In other words, for no other archetype was it true that all of its powerset combinations underperformed the average by a substantial margin.

5. This was true at basically all combat level ranges, and in the three separate cases of soloing, small teams, and large teams. In other words, always.


If you think blasters *aren't* underperforming now, you have to believe the change in Defiance alone singularly changed that, *and* you have to assume that of all of the changes since then to Dominators, Kheldians, Tankers, Stalkers - none of them significantly improved everyone else's performance

OR

Blasters are matched perfectly against the content, but the devs don't mind if everyone else sails above it, so much so they don't mind buffing things that are already too strong compared to the content.


I have an idea what the target is, but I don't think its my place to state that. I can say that if Blasters were datamined on average to underperform everyone else (the average of everyone else) by 50% (such that average performance was twice that of the average blaster) that would definitely be way way too high a gap. D2.0 was triggered by a smaller performance gap.


Also, interesting theory on Incarnate trials. Here's an interesting data point. Blasters were datamined as underperforming even in teams. How can you underperform in teams when everyone shares the same XP more or less (assuming on average Blasters were not sidekicked any more than anyone else)? Answer: they were dead more often, and therefore had more debt on average.

Question: do you think Blasters have a better chance of dying less often relative to everyone else in iTrials than in normal content?

I don't understand how that is relevant to what I said. What I said is true regardless of how the enemies are designed, so its therefore irrelevant whether there are generic enemies or not, nor do I rely on that assumption.

I am slightly worried that this is the case.

RE: Blasters dying more or less than everyone else in Incarnate content, it seems just barely possible that since there are a lot of effects that "one shot" tankers, it is just barely possible that everyone else is dying enought to keep constant Blaster deaths from standing out.

Maybe.

So let's assume that Defiance 2 did not buff Blasters up to 'acceptably low' standards of performance relative to other archetypes, many of which have been buffed since.

It all comes back to the basic scenario: you have a Blaster (let's say a fire/fire blaster) who encounters 3 +0 minions, 2 of which can mez (rikti, I suppose), while on an SO build.

What should happen?
How would the scenario be different if we switch out the Blaster for a fire/fire scrapper?
How should the scenario be different if we switch out the Blaster for a fire/fire scrapper?

My thought is that the Blaster is at much greater risk, will use more resources, and not get much extra kill speed out of the deal. My next thought is to wonder if giving the Blaster enough damage to one shot all 3 minions with single target attacks is too much.

Well, considering a Scrapper can Shield-Charge/Lightning-Rod/Spring-Attack or plain AoE those minions to death in less time than it takes for them to animate their attacks more often than not... Besides, a Fire/Fire Blaster can take those minions out in Aim + Build Up + Fireball + Fire Breath, more or less.

When it's easy for a Blaster, it's very easy. But it's not this easy very often. A Blaster plodding along at base difficulty with no ambushes or unexpected aggro will make a steady pace, but if that Blaster attempts to push out of that comfort zone like a Scrapper easily could, things cascade into catastrophe very, very fast.

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.

Like most powers in the game, you can cancel the rooting effect of your Traps powers with any power that causes redraw (vet and temp powers included). The drop location of PT/AM/TB is set the moment you activate the power, so you don’t have to stick around any longer than it takes you to unroot yourself.

This is a bit of the point. Are we balancing around the 'comfort zone' or not? To what extent should ramping up your difficulty be counted or discounted, let alone IOs and Incarnation?

I seem to remember that at one time, these sorts of things were supposed to be discounted entirely in terms of balance.

I'm talking base slotting here, but the point remains that a Scrapper can survive and thrive in environments of far higher danger and far faster combat than a Blaster with similar slotting. I'm not sure where the end point should be drawn, but when ALL of my Scrappers outperform ALL of my blasters by leaps and bounds, that's where I simply choose to cut my losses and abandon the AT, which is what I did.

I'm really not saying that everything should be a Scrapper, but the fact remains that when I sit down to play, my Scrappers level up and gain money and drops far faster than my Blasters, and the only thing keeping this relatively in check is my insistence on keeping the SAME difficulty settings between all my characters. Once upon a time, Blasters were the lower boundary that put a cap on the absolute highest level of difficulty any of my characters could face - the difficulty a Blaster could handle comfortably. For me, this turned out to the +0x2 without bosses.

The thing, though, is that playing my Mastermind recently, I discovered I was easily capable of handling much higher difficulty settings and aggro multiple spawns on those anyway, thus level up much faster. A Mastermind with fairly crappy slotting can still easily handle 20-30 and even more enemies, bosses included, at the same time, whereas a Blaster under those circumstances would be held and dead within seconds. Sure, said Mastermind fought said fight tooth and nail, damn near died a couple of times and used the bulk of his inspirations, but he won. Any of my past Blasters in there would not have stood a snowball's chance in hell.

Sideways of the above question, though, is basic game design. "Base difficulty" is not really base difficulty. It was at one point, but these days it isn't. Newer content will constantly throw tons of enemies at you, use overpowered enemies and generally spike the difficulty far higher than it really should be. Again I bring up Mercedes Sheldon's final mission, where a Warriors boss summons three boss ambushes, and the last of these summons three more boss ambushes on top of that. Basically, you're fighting seven bosses and at least seven minions for a total 14 people AT BASE DIFFICULTY. Similarly, the Dr. Steffard Ghouls missions has what feel like 30 ambushes that come in an endless stream, then come in pairs, then come three at a time towards the end. Even at base difficulty, that's a LOT of ghouls.

That's why I don't like the idea of balancing characters around what the AI is expected to bring to the field - because this requires discipline that our content creators simply don't have. When content exceeds what the AT was balanced for, some ATs fold while other ATs hold firm, and it's the ones that fold that come out wanting.

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.

I know you can unroot yourself, but the point is it's still unfriendly to the most important powers in that set. You have to unroot, run away and hope the fast DoT doesn't kill you (or worse get held like on Keyes), then wait around until the patch moves before attempting it again. Imagine if a Rad couldn't cast Rad infection or Enervating field.