Blaster performance test.

No. Because I said supplanted, not generated. Alternate theories existed, but they didn't replace the Ptolemaic and other heliocentric models until people could perform accurate tests. Kepler's work, for example, wasn't generally accepted until after his death, when people were able to test his work by making a prediction (about the transit of Mercury and Venus) and then performing an experiment to test it (by watching for said transit - Horrox using a telescope to do precisely that).


That is a method. As ArcanaVille pointed out later, data is simply that: data. What you do with the data is up to you, and there is a lot of room for error. That's why it's only part of the system, along with making a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, and then responding correctly to those results. The Devs rarely bother with testing their hypothesis: they generate one, check to make sure it isn't obviously buggy (e.g. crashes the servers), then deploy it and move on.

The PPM is a perfect example of the usefulness of data: they defined a rule that determined what the balanced equivalent PPM:flat% should be. It passed whatever internal balance pass they have, then they pushed it to live. Players noticed these things were substantially more powerful than the existing procs, and some players began to perform statistical analysis to determine what the proc-rate was... we were able to uncover and confirm the dev formula without their assistance, as well as discovering the bug that they're only now fixing regarding cone powers.

My argument has never been that statistical analysis alone will fix any problem. My argument was, from the very beginning, that analysis of data is an important part of the scientific method, and that your continued insistence that experimentation and collection of data are useless smacks me far more of religion than your original statement about "curve fitting to the data". Economists, biologists, climatologists, and many, many other scientific professions (including astronomy) would take umbrage.

This is a non-starter in rational argumentation, it has no meaning: ArcanaVille and I could easily make the same claim in your direction. Part of the reason this response is coming so late (beyond the fact that I have been away from my home for several days in the past week, due to vacation, home remodeling, and Passover), is that it smacks of an intellectual arrogance bordering on rudeness ("I haven't been able to convince you, so obviously you can't be convinced") and I was quite sure that I didn't want to continue the discussion. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, here I am.

To answer your question with honesty, I'm not sure you can: you are the one making the more extraordinary claim - that observation, experimentation, and numerical analysis are unscientific. But I would love to be convinced! If you somehow manage to demonstrate that it is possible to create a perfect model without testing it, where human behavior is concerned, then I will do everything in my power to see your work published and congratulate on the biggest advance in Economics in the history of the Nobel Prize.

I'm not really sure there's much point to continuing this discussion here, where it is going up against the meaning and purpose of the thread. As such...

*changing gears*

I think I'll try out this Blaster vs Stalker test. Should I try one without vet powers?

I like avoiding the Vet powers in a test like this. I do however use Ninja Run, but that power may cost me time rather than save it, because I will spend inordinate amounts of time leaping and flipping around town.

Fixed!

Go for it, I'm happy to get more data points. This is definitely not the most rigorous stats analysis in the world. I can list a half dozen flaws already, that is, things I might be doing wrong, Arcanaville and TwoHeadedBoy are doing great! But if you hold your blaster and your stalker to the same rules, as much as you can, good enough, I say.

If I match them, that would mean vet powers and running redside content, yes? Otherwise, I'm introducing extra noise into the results.

I just did an hour and 4 minutes each (due to the Blaster being stuck in a mission at the hour mark, and me going through to finish it - he was first, so it didn't mess up my results and I made sure the Stalker got the extra time) of a Beam/Energy Blaster and an Elec/Energy Stalker. Beam Rifle is something I played the hell out of in beta in order to critique it, then subsequently never rolled up because I'd decided to refuse to play Blasters until they got their issues addressed (this repeated when Dark/Dark hit beta). For the record, I did eventually roll up a Fire/Dark Blaster, but that was because I was getting pretty burnt out on how easy the game was, and decided that only a Blaster would provide me with the danger level in order to keep me interested.

Anyways, unlike the others, I went through blueside, without any vet powers or store powers. I played them both through the tutorial, and started my timers as soon as I got out. I did Matthew Habashy, Sandra Costel, Thiery, then hopped over to the Hollows and did Prescott's arc. The blaster hit the hour mark during the last mission of Prescott, finished it, and turned in the story arc, bumping him up to level 8. The stalker finished that mission three minutes earlier (also hitting level 8 from story arc xp) and so I used that time to hit the trainer and do Flux's first mission (defeat 10 outcast).

Interesting things I've noticed:

The updated Atlas Park is really good for placing things near each other in a sequential manner, so that even though I didn't have Ninja Run, I didn't spend much time running between missions. In fact, I didn't take a travel power when I could because I didn't really need it and my early power picks are both good for both ATs. That rather hurt me when I went to the Hollows and wound up with a "Defeat all Outcasts in base" that was 700 yards away - it was closer on the Stalker, which is responsible for some part of that 3 minute difference.

On the other hand, I didn't hit a trainer at all between level 2 and 6, because the missions were all right next to each other, and the only trainer was so far away. This meant that for the first 32-33 minutes of gameplay, the Blaster had 3 attack powers (plus Brawl and the Tranq Darts) while the Stalker only had 2 attack powers (plus Brawl and the Tranq Darts). Oddly enough, I didn't really notice the lack after a couple of missions, when I got into the hang of my powers... I suspect this is due to the Blaster powers having long cycle times and doing a lot more overkill damage, as the tier 2 blast would almost but not quite kill minions, leaving them still outside Brawl range, but make the tier 1 attack so useless. It helps that crits automatically mean one less attack on an enemy, while higher blaster damage plus defiance rarely changed the number of attacks.

Strangely enough, I hit level 8 significantly faster than either THB or Arcanaville did (level 2 - 8 was 64 minutes for my blaster, 85 for THB's). I'm guessing that has to do with the fact that I hit 4 different story arcs, which have hefty xp bonuses at this level.

Anyways, here's my time (note: for missions, I give the time for when I enter the door or reach the area where kill targets are... also, I have seconds in my notes, but only listing minutes here):

Beam/Energy Blaster
0:00 Level 2, out of tutorial
0:05 Level 3
0:09 Ritual of Souls (last Matthew mission)
0:12 Speak to Sandra Costel
0:13 Level 4
0:16 Confront Skull Leader
0:17 Stop Skulls attack
0:20 Put a stop to Skuls operation
0:23 Level 5
0:24 Turn in Sandra's Arc, speak to Thiery
0:25 Defeat 15 Hellions, er, Arachnos
0:29 Defeat Arachnos Commanders
0:32 Level 6
0:32 Find 3 hidden explosives
0:33 Destroy 3 pylons
0:36 Save Matthew Habashy
0:42 End of Thiery Arc
0:45 Defeat 10 Outcast (Prescott) - yes, that's 3 minutes to turn in my levels from 3 to 6, and travel to the Hollows via Sprint
0:46 Level 7
0:47 Defeat 10 Trolls
0:53 Defeat all Outcast in base (fun travel time)
0:58 Defeat all outcast in 2nd Base
1:04 Level 8 (from turning in the story arc)


Electric/Energy Stalker
0:00 Level 2, out of tutorial
0:05 Level 3
0:08 Ritual of Souls (last Matthew mission)
0:11 Speak to Sandra Costel
0:13 Level 4
0:17 Confront Skull Leader
0:18 Stop Skulls attack
0:21 Put a stop to Skuls operation
0:23 Level 5
0:24 Turn in Sandra's Arc, speak to Thiery
0:25 Defeat 15 Hellions, er, Arachnos
0:28 Defeat Arachnos Commanders
0:32 Level 6
0:32 Find 3 hidden explosives
0:33 Destroy 3 pylons
0:36 Save Matthew Habashy
0:42 End of Thiery Arc
0:44 Defeat 10 Outcast (Prescott) - yes, that's 3 minutes to turn in my levels from 3 to 6, and travel to the Hollows via Sprint
0:46 Level 7
0:46 Defeat 10 Trolls
0:49 Defeat all Outcast in base (fun travel time)
0:55 Defeat all outcast in 2nd Base
1:01 Level 8 (from turning in the story arc)
1:02 Defeat 10 outcast (Flux)

Wait: you're not comparing my numbers to THB, are you? Because my numbers *are* THB's numbers. I was just summarizing them because its not easy to compare THB's blaster and stalker at a glance from his raw data.

Haha yea I was going to say something about this too but I figured I'd let you handle it. Rigel seemed to think we were both conducting the test when you were just posting overall numbers for my experiences.

That's why damage will not help blasters teaming. Their problem is doing too much damage so they draw aggro, without killing the stuff. So unless their opening AoE wipes out the spawn extra damage will just make it harder on them.

Blasters will only perform better in teams if they generate less aggro for their attacks

We used to joke that Tanks didn't grab aggro, my Blaster let them take it.

Oh for @#$% sake. Will fix.

Could have be worse: someone could have combined your numbers with THB's and mine.

First person to recognize the relevance of this wins a no-prize.

If it's any consolation, my numbers are my own.

Spoiler: Kin defenders are cheating.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.

Completely! Blasters are fun enough that you don't notice how bad they are a lot of the time. One of the reasons there are so many of them.

It does not say that. It says Blasters underperform comparatively.

If I were to hypothetically say women on average make only eighty cents for every dollar men make at the same jobs, that doesn't mean all women are poor. It means there's a statistical skew there that probably shouldn't be there. Individual experiences can vary wildly, which is why its so important to look at very large numbers of people when trying to determine if the playing field is actually level.

Observing the experiences of one man and one woman in the workplace can't tell you if there is a problem or not. But it might give you insight into where the problems might be, if you can otherwise prove there is a problem.

Sorry, I was speaking of Blasters when I said 'me', since I'm referring to my experience with Blasters. My apologies.