My impression of Staff Fighting (numerical and otherwise)
By
Abyssus,
Posted on: 2012-04-17 19:19 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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While Arcanaville is one of the most intelligent posters on this forum, I haven't seen her vigorous mathematical proof that Staff is fine. And while I admit my math is rarely (if ever) as accurate, I've done my work showing it is. 9th in overall AoE (out of 19), and ahead of only Electric and Spines in single target (the number 1 and 2 AoE powersets before +dam and outside AoEs factor in).
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Originally Posted by Issen
But according to Arcana, Staff isn't underperforming. But then I wasn't aware that Titan Weapons or Street Justice were now the baseline for melee sets.
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TW/Elec Optimization
"9th in overall aoe" by a standard that you yourself admit is pertinent to nothing. You call stone melee better at aoe than staff. That's absurd. It doesn't matter how many numbers you throw at the wall if none of them stick.
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Unlike Arcana, I have NO reason to respect your opinion. You've contributed nothing. Show me why Stone melee ISN'T better than Staff, or quiet down. Simply making bold statements without proof is exactly the behavior you are accusing me of doing, but the difference is that I have submitted my reasonings to the world. Anyone can tell exactly how I got to my rankings. |
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
"9th in overall aoe" by a standard that you yourself admit is pertinent to nothing. You call stone melee better at aoe than staff. That's absurd. It doesn't matter how many numbers you throw at the wall if none of them stick.
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The problem with the method is that I can't know how much I should modify each type of AoE without doing testing. However, it is a more accurate way of testing than simply assuming a certain number targets per activation or expecting perfection with every AoE. Simply put, it is easier to hit targets with a PBAoE than a cone. It is easier to hit targets with a wider cone than with a narrower one, and easier with a longer one than a shorter one. If you disagree with that, than I'm afraid we've been playing a different game.
TW/Elec Optimization
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Combat, look in the mirror. You didn't make bold statements while showing nothing. You're being quoted as making bold statements that are ludicrous on their face. Sure, you then go on to point out that you understand that the method has flaws, but then seem to try and say it still is "good enough" to make your point. And yet, it throws in front of us things that anyone with a lick of sense knows are false. We're supposed to be comforted that this is good defense of your position?|
Originally Posted by Combat
Unlike Arcana, I have NO reason to respect your opinion. You've contributed nothing. Show me why Stone melee ISN'T better than Staff, or quiet down. Simply making bold statements without proof is exactly the behavior you are accusing me of doing, but the difference is that I have submitted my reasonings to the world. Anyone can tell exactly how I got to my rankings.
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I'm sorry, but whether or not Arcanaville has shown a rigorous proof of her claims, she has definitely not shown an obviously flawed proof in defense of them, while you have, twice now, actually. At this point, I find her claims more compelling than yours.
Blue
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Red
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Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
I don't care whether you respect me or not, I'm going to continue to point out that you're wasting your time with this futile quest for unwarranted buffs. You're now asking me to prove that staff doesn't need buffs, so thoroughly have you convinced yourself of the self-evidence of your position. Take a step back and note how bizarre that is.
The reason why I care is illustrated succinctly on the previous page: you're beginning to see some success in your efforts to convince people who by all accounts don't even care about pylon times that they should give up on characters that they enjoy. While your spurious arguments have no chance of convincing Synapse to buff the set, they do have a chance to sour people on an aspect of the game that they've been enjoying. Cool, man!
What is it that you hope to gain here? Do you honestly believe that whipping up new metrics by which to condemn staff each time the previous set is knocked down is going to be persuasive to the devs? Do you really think that they're reading this thread and shifting people away from issue 24 design so they can satisfy your nebulous demands?
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I'm sorry, but the fact of the matter is that I have done far more to prove my points than anyone has to show that staff is "fine." I'm being asking to go far beyond what should be necessary, and what has ever been necessary. Would you like me to do an in-depth analysis for every level of recharge against spawns of 1, 3, 5, 10, and 16 of the sets both base and with the addition of extra AoEs?|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
Combat, look in the mirror. You didn't make bold statements while showing nothing. You're being quoted as making bold statements that are ludicrous on their face. Sure, you then go on to point out that you understand that the method has flaws, but then seem to try and say it still is "good enough" to make your point. And yet, it throws in front of us things that anyone with a lick of sense knows are false. We're supposed to be comforted that this is good defense of your position?
I'm sorry, but whether or not Arcanaville has shown a rigorous proof of her claims, she has definitely not shown an obviously flawed proof in defense of them, while you have, twice now, actually. At this point, I find her claims more compelling than yours. |
My method is wrong, suggest some other standard. DPC? DPA? Number FX particles?
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
I don't care whether you respect me or not, I'm going to continue to point out that you're wasting your time with this futile quest for unwarranted buffs. You're now asking me to prove that staff doesn't need buffs, so thoroughly have you convinced yourself of the self-evidence of your position. Take a step back and note how bizarre that is.
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Quote:
| The reason why I care is illustrated succinctly on the previous page: you're beginning to see some success in your efforts to convince people who by all accounts don't even care about pylon times that they should give up on characters that they enjoy. While your spurious arguments have no chance of convincing Synapse to buff the set, they do have a chance to sour people on an aspect of the game that they've been enjoying. Cool, man! |
Blasters are fine, just go and enjoy them! Before last issue, Gravity was fine, so people so have gone an enjoyed it! Stalkers have always been fine, so go and enjoy them! Pet AI is just dandy, go and enjoy it! When a set is underperforming in comparison to similar sets, it is worth the effort to try and show that underperformance.
My end goal is make the sets more balanced, and thus more enjoyable. I believe that is worth the potential to dissuade people, especially considering the fact that some other posters have found dissatisfaction in the same areas and have complained, ie the "Tanker Staff is Awful" thread.
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| What is it that you hope to gain here? Do you honestly believe that whipping up new metrics by which to condemn staff each time the previous set is knocked down is going to be persuasive to the devs? Do you really think that they're reading this thread and shifting people away from issue 24 design so they can satisfy your nebulous demands? |
Basically:
1. Adjust FoB and FoM to be the same magnitude as FoS
or
2. Adjust the recharge time on Serpent's Reach and/or Sky Splitter and the damage/endurance accordingly.
Doing either small fix would go a long way.
TW/Elec Optimization
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No, you aren't. You're being asked to show things that can't be picked apart easily. Because so far, that's what you've done, as far as I can tell.|
Originally Posted by Combat
I'm sorry, but the fact of the matter is that I have done far more to prove my points than anyone has to show that staff is "fine." I'm being asking to go far beyond what should be necessary, and what has ever been necessary.
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I get that you've put a lot of work into these posts. They're long and detailed. I, personally, am not claiming you've not made an effort. But if I understand you correctly, you're saying that everyone who disagrees with your work needs to provide proof that Staff is not subpar. But that's not what everyone is saying. We're pointing out flaws in your work. It's your thesis that Staff is sub-par, and you're putting out the documentation you claim that shows that. When your documentation contains errors, it's not suddenly beholden on anyone else to produce documentation saying that Staff is fine. All we're doing saying that you aren't successfully showing that staff is not fine.
I don't have a metric I want you to use. I just know that the ones you have used have had problems, the presence of which undercut my willingness to trust the conclusions you drew from them. (To be specific, your original DPA ordering that showed Broadsword equivalent to Katana on ST DPS, and now the latest list showing Stone Melee with better AoE than Staff.)
You asking people like me to prove that sort of info is wrong is, in my opinion, akin to demanding someone break out a proof when you assert the sun is green or February has 47 days. We're not going to bother, we're just going to conclude you're wrong and move on, and we're going to advise other people not to give your claims a lot of credence.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Quote:
I should point out your original contention was that Staff was a "second tier" AoE set just behind TW, Claws, and SS. And I pointed out that with the errors in the SS analysis, that left only two by your reckoning that were definitely better.|
Originally Posted by Combat
I haven't seen your proof that Staff is better than "nearly every melee set".
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Now you've invented a different metric, but its really difficult to judge it because:
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| I see a set that has one decent AoE, roughly comparable to "Whirling X" AoE most powersets get, one weak 5 target cone with decent area (ie, Slice, instead of Headsplitter), and one strong 5 target cone over a decent area. Nothing gamebreakingly powerful, compared to the rest of the melee sets. Objectively looking at what each set brings to AoE, I don't see that Staff stands head and shoulders over most sets, but rather is just above average. I think size should be considered when talking about AoEs, so I'll use a metric of DPA/(Animation+Recharge)*Max # of targets*Radius to try and judge the set's AoE potential. I'll call that a "P" rating, for potential. Adding the those together gives a good idea of the set's AoE potential, combining damage and ease of use. |
2. I'm not sure I'm even judging the actual metric you used, because I cannot generate the numbers you show with any variation of the metric you post above.
3. I can say that any metric that shows Super Strength's one single AoE being 50% better than all three of Staff's AoEs is obviously broken. As we've gone over already, even if you believe the best way to judge the sets is by piling AoEs from patron pools into them, this new metric you're presenting here says that SS *without them* is *50% better than Staff*. That's simply numerically impossible.
The problem is this metric hasn't been sanity checked for reasonable results in simple to check situations. If they can't be relied upon in areas we *know*, they cannot be trusted in areas we don't.
To be honest, I believe you believe in Footstomp so much, you're looking for metrics that emphasize its strengths. There's no justification whatsoever to multiply target cap and radius. But if you think there is, an interesting exercise (which I can't do: as I said I can't make your formula work to generate your numbers so there's something wrong somewhere) would be to perform the calculation for Explosive Blast. Just Explosive Blast all by itself. Where would a blaster that only had that one AoE place in your list?
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I've adjusted my efforts when I've made a mistake. After realizing the reason for Katana and Broadsword being equal (GD's DS and animation being the same value), I adjusted and fixed that. |
Originally Posted by UberGuy
No, you aren't. You're being asked to show things that can't be picked apart easily. Because so far, that's what you've done, as far as I can tell.
I get that you've put a lot of work into these posts. They're long and detailed. I, personally, am not claiming you've not made an effort. But if I understand you correctly, you're saying that everyone who disagrees with your work needs to provide proof that Staff is not subpar. But that's not what everyone is saying. We're pointing out flaws in your work. It's your thesis that Staff is sub-par, and you're putting out the documentation you claim that shows that. When your documentation contains errors, it's not suddenly beholden on anyone else to produce documentation saying that Staff is fine. All we're doing saying that you aren't successfully showing that staff is not fine. I don't have a metric I want you to use. I just know that the ones you have used have had problems, the presence of which undercut my willingness to trust the conclusions you drew from them. (To be specific, your original DPA ordering that showed Broadsword equivalent to Katana on ST DPS, and now the latest list showing Stone Melee with better AoE than Staff.) You asking people like me to prove that sort of info is wrong is, in my opinion, akin to demanding someone break out a proof when you assert the sun is green or February has 47 days. We're not going to bother, we're just going to conclude you're wrong and move on, and we're going to advise other people not to give your claims a lot of credence. |
To be blunt, no one has disproved Stone doesn't have better AoE than Staff. No one has found flaws in the second thread about Staff vs SS for AoE. No one has shown that my AoE set rankings are wrong, except in the ways I already said they were and tried to account for. And now people are no longer pointing out flaws, just making assumptions and generally just ignoring my points, using circular reason as a main argument.
If you take into account +damage, and make the adjustments I suggested, the AoE rankings would be:
1. Electric
2. Claws
3. Spines
4. TW
5. Tanker Fiery
6. Kinetic
7. Staff
8. Dual Blades
9. SS
10. Fiery non-tankers
11. War Mace
12. Katana
13. Ice
14. Stone
15. Broadsword
16. Battle Axe
17. Street
18. Martial Arts
19. Energy
20. Dark
Which is a good estimation of how the playerbase views the sets. The only variable would be the additional AoEs, which would help non-weapon sets and sets with large amounts of +damage (aka: SS).
TW/Elec Optimization
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To be blunt, the claim is completely ludicrous. That your analysis concludes that tells me, point blank, that I shouldn't believe anything you say about any powerset comparisons using that analysis as your foundation.
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Originally Posted by Combat
To be blunt, no one has disproved Stone doesn't have better AoE than Staff.
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Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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Having never played staff I will still declare with absolute confidence it would kick Stone's rear in an AoE face-off.
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Originally Posted by Combat
To be blunt, no one has disproved Stone doesn't have better AoE than Staff.
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Quote:
This is why I hate discussing AoEs. They are 100 times more numerically hard to judge than single targets. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I should point out your original contention was that Staff was a "second tier" AoE set just behind TW, Claws, and SS. And I pointed out that with the errors in the SS analysis, that left only two by your reckoning that were definitely better.
Now you've invented a different metric, but its really difficult to judge it because: 1. What that metric says is that all other things being equal, an AoE with a target cap of five and a radius of 20 is twice as good as one with target cap of five and radius 10. On what basis do you justify that metric's calculations? 2. I'm not sure I'm even judging the actual metric you used, because I cannot generate the numbers you show with any variation of the metric you post above. 3. I can say that any metric that shows Super Strength's one single AoE being 50% better than all three of Staff's AoEs is obviously broken. As we've gone over already, even if you believe the best way to judge the sets is by piling AoEs from patron pools into them, this new metric you're presenting here says that SS *without them* is *50% better than Staff*. That's simply numerically impossible. The problem is this metric hasn't been sanity checked for reasonable results in simple to check situations. If they can't be relied upon in areas we *know*, they cannot be trusted in areas we don't. To be honest, I believe you believe in Footstomp so much, you're looking for metrics that emphasize its strengths. There's no justification whatsoever to multiply target cap and radius. But if you think there is, an interesting exercise (which I can't do: as I said I can't make your formula work to generate your numbers so there's something wrong somewhere) would be to perform the calculation for Explosive Blast. Just Explosive Blast all by itself. Where would a blaster that only had that one AoE place in your list? |
Anyway, I'll explain how I got my numbers step-by-step.
Battle Axe:
Whirling Axe- 1.05 DS, 2.904 animation, 14s recharge, 10 targets max, 8' radius, 360° arc.
Max DPC= DS/(Animation+Recharge)*Max # of targets= 1.05/(2.904+14)=.62116
Area of Effect= pi*r^2*(arc°/360)=(8^2*pi)*360/360= 201.06
Prating= .62116*201.06 = 124.891
And to answer the question
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| What that metric says is that all other things being equal, an AoE with a target cap of five and a radius of 20 is twice as good as one with target cap of five and radius 10. On what basis do you justify that metric's calculations? |
1. The developers use area in their AoE formula, as you know, but do not include target cap, so they obviously consider AoE area to be important.
2. Ease of use corresponds to AoE effectiveness, because without considering area of effect Headsplitter is one of the greatest AoEs in the game. The extra time it times to line up a small cone will make it less likely to reach its potential than for a large PBAoE.
3. I will continue trying to adjust for the fact that there is a maximum benefit a set can gain from a large radius. After all, a 200' radius power will not be 4 times as effective as a 100' radius power. That maximum will probably have to take in the maximum number of targets and the size of the average mob hit box. I tried to do that afterwards by multiplying the effectiveness of small cones by 3/2 and decreasing the effectiveness of large PBAoEs by 2/3 (and large cones by 1/2). Combining this arbitrary change with the an average amount of +damage for each set leads to the ranking in the previous post, which matches up extremely well with player judgment.
4. Even without accounting for the changes I made in my previous post to the formula, most sets fall where we'd expect them to fall. Electric, Spines, and Claws all were ranked high, and the bottom consisted of Dark, Energy, and Martial Arts. This seems to lend credence to formula because it seems to correspond well with player experience.
TW/Elec Optimization
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See post #110. Note rankings.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
To be blunt, the claim is completely ludicrous. That your analysis concludes that tells me, point blank, that I shouldn't believe anything you say about any powerset comparisons using that analysis as your foundation.
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I'm not saying Staff won't out-perform Stone (again see the rankings after I apply those slight changes and accounted for damage buffs, -res). I'm saying that you should show that Stone's AoE is horrible in comparison. If it is demonstrably different, it should be easy to prove.
And while stone was more highly ranked than most people would expect, other rankings were pretty much right. DM and Energy were last, Electric/Spines/Claws first, which is exactly what we'd expect, and corresponds more with player experience that DPC would account for.
TW/Elec Optimization
Here's my criticism:
Your metric puts Kinetic as better AoE than staff. Yet Kinetic only has 2 AoEs, longer recharge times, less damage and knockback.
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I think your AoE factor has to max out at the target cap. At its maximum contribution, something with a target cap of 5 has to max out at half of the maximum contribution of something with a target cap of 10. Area above and beyond that adds nothing.
So I think that your factor needs to involve multiplying the DPC and max target, and then scaling down from that maximum for attacks with smaller radii or smaller arc of effect.
Say you have two identical damage, identically shaped, very large spherical attacks, (a) with max target of 10 and (b) with a max target of 5. Attack (b) with its max of five should be about 1/2 as strong as (a) with its max of 10, because both are so large it should be easy for them to saturate their caps, and (a) can hit twice as many targets.
Now as radius and arc shrink, the less likely we fit every foe in the effect. So if both (a) and (b) have the same small radius, then neither may be likely to saturate, but (b) still can't beat (a). At best it will break even with (a), because they will both start saturating all the targets they can fit in their area.
So that tells me that it's not area that matters most, it's target cap, and area is a scaling factor on how likely an attack is to actually hit that cap. Area only starts to dominate when it becomes so small that it essentially enforces a target cap smaller than the powers formal one.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
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Shadowslip: 50 DDC
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Quote:
Target caps are important for PBAoEs and large cones, but smaller cones that represent a majority of melee AoEs are mostly unable to use a higher target cap. If Shadow Maul were raised to a 15 target cap, it wouldn't become 3 times as effective. |
Originally Posted by UberGuy
I think your AoE factor has to max out at the target cap. At its maximum contribution, something with a target cap of 5 has to max out at half of the maximum contribution of something with a target cap of 10. Area above and beyond that adds nothing.
So I think that your factor needs to involve multiplying the DPC and max target, and then scaling down from that maximum for attacks with smaller radii or smaller arc of effect. Say you have two identical damage, identically shaped, very large spherical attacks, (a) with max target of 10 and (b) with a max target of 5. Attack (b) with its max of five should be about 1/2 as strong as (a) with its max of 10, because both are so large it should be easy for them to saturate their caps, and (a) can hit twice as many targets. Now as radius and arc shrink, the less likely we fit every foe in the effect. So if both (a) and (b) have the same small radius, then neither may be likely to saturate, but (b) still can't beat (a). At best it will break even with (a), because they will both start saturating all the targets they can fit in their area. So that tells me that it's not area that matters most, it's target cap, and area is a scaling factor on how likely an attack is to actually hit that cap. |
But I think my numbers did take into account target caps, so I would get exactly the result you are expecting. I didn't account for that in my reply to Arcanaville, so I'll change that. You are right, however, that the maximum effectiveness of extra size should be proportional to the target cap.
TW/Elec Optimization
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I questioned that as well. I'm guessing that the knockback of Repulsing Torrent is the main detractor for in-game performance. It isn't as bad as many seem to think, because it deals about as much damage as Eye of the Storm w/o bonus damage (1.2), with a faster animation (2.224), and recharges faster (12 seconds). Kinetic also has the added advantage of considerable +damage from power siphon. Burst has a lower recharge than EotS (15), but is worse for non-stalkers because of lower damage and higher animation times.
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Originally Posted by Mazey
Here's my criticism:
Your metric puts Kinetic as better AoE than staff. Yet Kinetic only has 2 AoEs, longer recharge times, less damage and knockback. |
TW/Elec Optimization
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Right. That's what I was referring to in my closing sentence. If your area is too small to fit your actual target cap in the effect, then the area ends up dominating.|
Originally Posted by Combat
Target is important for PBAoEs and large cones, but smaller cones that represent a majority of melee AoEs are mostly unable to use a higher target cap. If Shadow Maul were raised to a 15 target cap, it wouldn't become 3 times as effective.
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Quote:
| But I think my numbers did take into account target caps, so I would get exactly the result you are expecting. I didn't account for that in my reply to Arcanaville, so I'll change that. You are right, however, that the maximum effectiveness of extra size should be proportional to the target cap. |
* Some things, like Judgement powers, can hit so many targets they only should count at full strength under the assumption of high difficulty settings or team/league play.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Quote:
Simple. Whether or not the set "underperforms", is it fun to play, disregarding the minmaxers trying to squeeze every last hundredth of a point of DPM out of a powerset? If it's fun to play, and it takes someone going over the powerset with a micrometer to be able to tell that, in a raw head-to-head comparison, it takes a Staff Fighting character two and a half extra seconds to defeat X number of [insert mob type] compared to [insert melee powerset], what do the absolute numbers matter? If the powersets all played the same, and did the same theoretical damage, what's the point in having different powersets?
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Originally Posted by Combat
I've heard that a lot in this thread, and it is an opinion I am frankly puzzled by.
"I think Staff numerically underperforms, but doesn't begin to show that until higher levels. Can we change some of the powers to make it a little better at the high end?" "Screw the numbers, just have fun" How is that a valid answer to a numerical complaint? |
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I think the important variable would be the size of the average mob hit box (the area, not the volume). If the average mob covers an area of X ft, I think the safety zone for "max effectiveness" would be between 2X and 4X. Does that seem like a good estimate to you? |
Originally Posted by UberGuy
Right. That's what I was referring to in my closing sentence. If your area is too small to fit your actual target cap in the effect, then the area ends up dominating.
Basically, there's some size that's the absolute minimum size required to fit your target cap in the attack. But even if you can fit your whole target cap in the effect, there's still the question of how likely that is to actually happen. So an attack with an area just big enough to fit its target cap in standard-sized critters in it probably still shouldn't get its full target cap as its rating. As area grows over that required to fit the target cap in, it becomes more and more probable that you fit the max in the effect*. As you say, many melee powerset attacks never actually grow that large, so they don't benefit strongly from this effect. Something like FootStomp is getting big enough relative to its target max that it probably should count close to all of them. Shadow Maul, not so much. * Some things, like Judgement powers, can hit so many targets they only should count at full strength under the assumption of high difficulty settings or team/league play. |
Anyone know what the size of a hit box is?
TW/Elec Optimization
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There's a limit to this. If something underperfoms too much, it should be improved, regardless of how fun it is. Whether something is fun is subjective, but things like how fast it levels are not. Some spread in performance is acceptable, but at some point, the devs have to decide that outliers lay too far afield and need to be brought closer. They've done this many times in many different ways.|
Originally Posted by srmalloy
Simple. Whether or not the set "underperforms", is it fun to play, disregarding the minmaxers trying to squeeze every last hundredth of a point of DPM out of a powerset? If it's fun to play, and it takes someone going over the powerset with a micrometer to be able to tell that, in a raw head-to-head comparison, it takes a Staff Fighting character two and a half extra seconds to defeat X number of [insert mob type] compared to [insert melee powerset], what do the absolute numbers matter? If the powersets all played the same, and did the same theoretical damage, what's the point in having different powersets?
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We can't just look at whether something looks cool or feels neat. It also needs to perform comparably, but not identically to other characters, for some measurable metric. The devs tend to look at leveling speed, but they sometimes listen to other arguments.
Note that I am not convinced Staff needs anything. But if I thought it did, "it's fun anyway" wouldn't dissuade me from asking to having it looked at. People having fun with it shouldn't have to "buy" their fun at the expense of too much performance.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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I think we sort of agree. I just think that "it doesn't matter because it is fun" is like "we don't need mecha armor because we have enforcer". I'm not trying to take away its "fun" to make it perform better, I'm just trying to improve it slightly in ways that will make it more numerically appealing. In my opinion, a set should be both fun and numerically compelling.
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
There's a limit to this. If something underperfoms too much, it should be improved, regardless of how fun it is. Whether something is fun is subjective, but things like how fast it levels are not. Some spread in performance is acceptable, but at some point, the devs have to decide that outliers lay too far afield and need to be brought closer. They've done this many times in many different ways.
We can't just look at whether something looks cool or feels neat. It also needs to perform comparably, but not identically to other characters, for some measurable metric. The devs tend to look at leveling speed, but they sometimes listen to other arguments. Note that I am not convinced Staff needs anything. But if I thought it did, "it's fun anyway" wouldn't dissuade me from asking to having it looked at. People having fun with it shouldn't have to "buy" their fun at the expense of too much performance. |
TW/Elec Optimization
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More specifically you're trying to trade in its "extra stuff," which you've repeatedly valued at exactly zero, for more of one particular sort of number. It ain't going down like that.|
Originally Posted by Combat
I think we sort of agree. I just think that "it doesn't matter because it is fun" is like "we don't need mecha armor because we have enforcer". I'm not trying to take away its "fun" to make it perform better, I'm just trying to improve it slightly in ways that will make it more numerically appealing.
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By the by, not once did I say people should ignore performance for fun. I said staff's performance is great and you're trying to talk people out of having fun with essentially no justification whatsoever.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with the scientific method, but here's how it typically doesn't work: you don't start from a position that you're sure is true and try to produce evidence to that effect. When an experiment falsifies your hypothesis you check the experiment and then modify your hypothesis. This continual drive to find new ways in which you can claim staff is terrible is more akin to a Monsanto EIS: E-Z-Gro can't be responsible for this sorghum blight because our fourteenth attempt to exonerate it looks pretty good if you squint.
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I haven't tried to prove the staff is terrible. Most of my assumptions (see the SS comparison) were made at date points that specifically favored staff.|
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
More specifically you're trying to trade in its "extra stuff," which you've repeatedly valued at exactly zero, for more of one particular sort of number. It ain't going down like that.
By the by, not once did I say people should ignore performance for fun. I said staff's performance is great and you're trying to talk people out of having fun with essentially no justification whatsoever. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the scientific method, but here's how it typically doesn't work: you don't start from a position that you're sure is true and try to produce evidence to that effect. When an experiment falsifies your hypothesis you check the experiment and then modify your hypothesis. This continual drive to find new ways in which you can claim staff is terrible is more akin to a Monsanto EIS: E-Z-Gro can't be responsible for this sorghum blight because our fourteenth attempt to exonerate it looks pretty good if you squint. |
You don't understand why I dislike balancing around perks. I don't think Staff's specialties should be a reason why for it underperforming. I have never said that I wanted staff to lose its perks, I just think that they shouldn't be considered.
I'm NOT trying to find new ways to discredit Staff. I am trying to find an acceptable metric that people agree with, which produces the expected values for other sets as well. Arguably a good AoE performance metric is not a bad thing, and I am trying to find ways to create one, regardless of where Staff ends up. Also note that the SS comparisons were only in response to Arcana.
Also, you seem to have a lack of understanding of the scientific process.
My hypothesis is that Staff will underperform under certain metrics. I test those certain metrics, and report my conclusion. That conclusion does not have to be the same as my hypothesis, and hypothesis are supposed to be biased towards one outcome or another. I'm not specifically choosing metrics to make Staff look bad, but testing in a variety of metrics. I'd decide to add Area of Effect in to make Staff look bad, and it can be argued that the relatively large cones of staff would actually be helped by this sort of analysis.
TW/Elec Optimization
"I think Staff numerically underperforms, but doesn't begin to show that until higher levels. Can we change some of the powers to make it a little better at the high end?"
"Screw the numbers, just have fun"
How is that a valid answer to a numerical complaint? If the numbers are changed without cottage ruling everything, the set will still mostly play the same way. It won't hurt your fun. To be frank, as much as it is great that a powerset is fun to a lot of people, that shouldn't stop the devs from trying to balance that set, whether it is over or underachieving.
And to me, fun is often a factor of easiness to play, and at low levels staff is absolutely basically works like a Mac. It succeeds because it is easy and simple to use, largely because the relative strength of its AoEs and the power of FoS. It is kind of like Willpower for the early levels, because it makes everything easier, but it doesn't have the raw numbers to be a top (or above average set) in the late-game. That said, even bottom dwelling melee sets can do ridiculous things, and staff still maintains a niche by offering survability in ways other sets can't. Personally, I don't the damage should suffer for that, just like DM isn't penalized by having -tohit in every attack, or Kinetic having -dam when using power siphon.