Enhancement Proc Changes

Allow me to explain it in a way that cannot be picked apart or misinterpreted: if these procs under-perform after the switch over I will buff them.

Synapse

IIRC Arbiter Hawk told us about the 100% chance aspect of the ppm system before the fanbase had any idea, he said that it remained true even when you added 100% recharge to it and 100% global recharge. What you call broken is how the dev team advertised it to us.

All the "many of us" did was decry "pay to win" in this highly competitive pvp game and now we're in this H. Bergeron-esque scenario where IO strong spots are weakened and PPM strong spots are weakened

Oh, and how do you propose to buff perf shifter in powers like speed boost when you rebalanced it for autos, you masaquered it in aoes and quick aoes got the worst of it

I've actually been considering it for Black Dwarf Drain, since I sometimes do have end issues if I end up slugging it out against a single hard target. The new build should have fewer problems with that though. *shrug* I could see it having occasional uses anyway.

-Morgan.

If you buy it now, it will probably work the way it does now until I24, at which time it will change somewhat.

Each store-bought proc has a description that says it will "go off roughly X times per minute". To find out how often it will currently activate in any given power, you need to know that power's base, unslotted recharge time and activation time. Add those two together, and then divide that time by 60 and multiply by the X from the proc's description. That's the chance the proc will activate in that power, each time you activate it, but the most it can go off is obviously 100% of the time

In I24, you will need to use the enhanced recharge time instead of the base time, and PPM rates will go up slightly. For most builds, this will probably cut the proc rate to somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of what you'll get today. Additionally, the maximum chance for it to activate will be 90%, not 100%.

Hopefully that info can help you decide what makes the most sense. We can't really tell you if it makes sense to buy them now, later or ever. It depends on what's important to you, and what you think of the numbers you can get using the above info.

You're not from around these parts are you.


Underperform what?

Entropic is definitely one worth reexamining - although its not *immensely* low, just pretty low. There's a couple of 2% chance to stun ones that seem quixotic and might be typos: Debilitative Action and Unspeakable Terror.

Oh, like I said, I get the idea. And I appreciate that you're trying to be clear about it.

I just think you're underestimating the ability of this community to pick apart and/or misinterpret things - after all, "under-perform" is subjective and sometimes "buff" is as well.


Edit: scooped by Arcanaville.

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

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

Predicting how the players are going to value IO sets is not a science. Look at crushing impact over the years. But while I think its possible Castle was at least thinking about Dark Regeneration when the Theft of Essence set was being created, its far more likely that ToE's proc is +End for the simple reason that +health and +end tend to be associated with each other a lot in the invention system. cf: Numina's Convalesence +regen/+recovery, Panacea Chance for +HP/+End, Miracle +Recovery. Notice also how often health-related and endurance-related set bonuses appear side by side in sets.

Yes.

I didn't say it wasn't what they tried to do, just that it was completely obvious that it would be game-breaking if it were that way, and they'd have to fix it.

(To clarify: I mean specifically the "ignoring recharge" part. I don't see a problem with procs hitting 100% when the powers really are slow, and think the 90% cap is silly.)

I don't believe you. you and your dev team have destroyed PvP with i13 and never looked back at it, if the new rules for procs is going to work how I think it is you're about to destroy it all over again in terms of certain powers being useless again. how about you provide us an example of how flares, under PvP values will be effected by these changes if it were double/tripple proc'd. Same with neutrino bolt.

I don't think this is exactly fair to Synapse - he's been really good about giving people a heads up when things are coming down the pipe and following up on things when he says he will. If he says that he's going to look at certain procs that don't seem to line up with other similar ones, I personally trust him to make it happen.

I agree that PvP hasn't been tweaked and monitored like people were told during the i13 changes, and yes this change will negatively impact proc rates in those two powers - but that high proc rate is apparently one of the reasons why this change is being made in the first place.

As for how this will affect me, my PvE-build Rad/Kin Corruptor has 3 damage procs and an Achilles proc in Neutrino Bolt, just because the base damage is so pathetic that it's hardly worth the slot plus I can self-cap damage easily regardless with FS. Most of my other builds will actually proc more often, now that the PPM rate for AoEs is being adjusted - I think that Sleet, Rain of Fire, and Ice Storm are the only powers I use regularly that will be hurt by the revised changes.

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

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

I don't believe the Fortunata Hypnosis: chance to placate is working in PVE either.

Would a better phrasing be "if these procs are under-performing in comparison to other, similar procs after the switch over I will buff them"? That's a little more precise to what you mean, I believe. Otherwise underperform is subjective.

On the mechanics of this, my two cents. I rather dislike that the proc system seems to be getting more complicated after all these years of being in another state. I'm sure we'll roll with the changes now (and really, a proc is often helpful in the old and new system, so you really only have to worry about the mechanics in extreme min/max cases), but it does bug me a bit.

I am, however, most in favor of all the procs getting looked at and making sure they work well. Some are just useless (Triumphant Insult's chance for a Mag 2 stun? Absolute Amazement's chance for -to hit? Besides others that have been mentioned) and have been needing a look for years.

The dev team that was around at I13 isn't really around anymore, other than a few people. And the changes made then weren't what were entirely planned by Castle at the time, from what I remember of his posts on the subject. So try to be a little fair, though I can't blame any PvPer for being annoyed at the lack of attention that part of the game has received since then.

As for the proc changes and how it affects any gameplay, especially PvP, that's part of playing an MMO. Power tweaks affect everyone in any MMO I've seen, and especially so in PvP. If you're going to PvP, you have to adapt. Your post seems more like a "I wanna keep things the same no matter what," and not particularly adaptive.

And blech, if PvP is that focused on procs right now, I'm much less interested in it. Not my cuppa tea.

First:

If I've got the numbers right, the 33% proc's chance to fire will be about 18%, and a 5PPM ATO proc would be 16% with 134.81% slotted recharge in flares (That's three lvl50IOs and T4 Spiritual Core) with the chance to proc increasing as the recharge rate goes down.

Neutrino bolt would have about a 26% chance instead of the 33% and 22% with the 5PPM Proc. Considering the same ammount of recharge.

Second:

You must not be big on PvP if you'll freak over a change this small. I've played PvP games were I had a literally, mathematically impossible to kill character builds ruined because the key power was actually underpowered and the attempt to improve it ended up removing the mechanic I leveraged.

If you're at all serious about wanting Dev support of PvP, you cannot freak out when balance adjustments are made. Especially when the "Balance adjustment" is in most places a buff.

It's one of my biggest pet peeves, but the devs did not kill PvP, the players did. If it didn't fit what they thought it should be it wasn't "Skilled" and "Completely ruined". The devs could do nothing right, because whatever they did was catering to "Nubs" who just happened to be whoever got their way at that specific time, with the people who didn't get their way acting like petulant children.

Half the players think you're a nub if you move, and the other half say nub to people who stand and duke it out while the poor devs are stuck in the middle. I couldn't blame them if they didn't care about PvP, but I don't think that's true. I think they -do- care, but the PvP playerbase is so split and venomous they don't know how to go about addressing it. I've abused their goodwill myself, and this thread shows itself, the devs are people pleasers who -do- attempt to cater to their playerbase. A design philosophy that does not actually sit well with good PvP mechanic design.

Of course I'd be a terrible PvP designer for this game, as the level of "Suck it up" I'd unleash upon the poor players would cause a Tsunami crisis.

Yeah, some of the procs kind of boggle my mind. Perhaps the thinking was that if you used it on a target that was resistant to or protected from Fear, then the Stun might mez the target anyway and therefore be useful. It's kind of the theory that "more mez is always good."

Making UnspkTerr into a short duration Fear proc might make sense. Then it would stack with your Fear and therefore you'd have a chance at basically +1 to the magnitude of the Fear.

Synapse. If you're at the Summit, remind me to buy you a beer (or tasty beverage of your choice).

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

I'll have to take you up on that.

Has anyone actually calculated the PPM rate of a power that has a 90% chance to fire instead of a 100% chance? I suspect it might be less than folks expect.

Yay, Unspeakable Terror and Triumphant Insult?

The number for a 5 ppm proc looks right if the ppm isn't increased. Which it's expected to be. Based on the last set of equations I'd expect closer to 20%.

As for, say, Apocalypse, City of Data lists that as 4.5ppm, so it'd be slightly worse. (Which seems a bit peculiar.) So I don't know what you're doing to get 18%.

-Morgan, can't help but wonder, is that slotting that someone might actually do? o.O

Unless I'm stupid:

1PPM- 54s enhanced cycle time

2PPM- 27s enhanced cycle time

3PPM- 18s enhanced cycle time

3.5PPM- 15.46s enhanced cycle time

3.75PPM- 14.4s enhanced cycle time

4PPM- 13.5s enhanced cycle time

4.5PPM- 12s enhanced cycle time

5PPM- 10.8s enhanced cycle time

5.625PPM- 9.6s enhanced cycle time

6PPM- 9s enhanced cycle time

6.5PPM- 8.3s enhanced cycle time

7PPM- 7.71s enhanced cycle time

I came up with almost exactly 90% for the Superior version of the Stalker proc slotted in Assassin's Strike, and that's with 100% slotted recharge. So anything significantly less than that amount of slotted recharge would definitely slap into the cap. That's PPM 5 and a 15-second base recharge time.