Which power sets need the most help?

See I disagree with the term brother. At most cold would be the love child between storm and FF. I find brother the wrong term, cold only shares 2.5 powers with storms, and doesn't play anything like storm. It is just not close enough to be a brother to storm.

Actually, not to take sides on this very important issue, but while the older brother is, obviously, older, the "big brother" equally connotes older and in some other way higher ranked brother. The term "big brother" even in American english often is used to indicate a mentorship relationship, and in other cultures (Japanese in particular and many asian cultures in general) the term which translates into "big brother" also indicates mentorship, seniority, or veteran status.

I tend to think of Cold Domination as the second cousin once removed of Sonic.

XD. I almost spilled over my soda! Shame on me for drinking near the computer!

Heat Loss also has a strong Kin vibe...hrmm.

This is true. I am Taiwanese. :P "Big Brother" can be used on your good buddy who is older than you. In gangster, "Big Brother" is used a lot. And in a big circle of friends, there's usually one "Big Brother" or "Big Sister". They are not usually related to you by blood but we call them "big" because it "indicates mentorship, seniority, or veteran status".

On the other hand, we call the young ones "Small Brother".

There is no Cottage rule....there has not been one...

There has not been one since the developers altered Telekinesis from a granted flight toggle to a team meber to a telekinetic toggle hold.

They proved it again when they changed storm kick from a 100 kick animation damage over time effect to a lower damage single jump kick animation.

So cottage rule....thats a myth

I have no idea how either statement disproves the existence of the cottage rule, so I have to assume that even though I seem to recall your presence in threads where its definition has been discussed, you are still unaware of what the actual rule is.

You know both those examples do not break the cottage rule.

Telekinesis is still toggled targeted flight, the core of the power is the same, they just remodeled it to make it an aoe enemy control as well. I also thought this change was made before live. Any changes made before a power hits live can't break the cottage rule. Singularity is a good example of that, it goes from team TP, fold space, to a pet. The change was made before live though so it does not break the cottage rule.

Storm kick was no where close to breaking the cottage rule, it is still a damage attack, it didn't become a no damage ally buff. All the cottage rule is about is keeping the core of the power the same. A lot can be changed without effecting what the devs see as the core of a power.

Does anyone think that Big Brother in 1984 refers to the government being older than you, or is bigger and more powerful? Age has nothing to do with it.

That is one of the meanings, but big brother also means older (bigger) brother, as well as someone that provides guidance and protection.

As an Ice/Storm I RELY on that -KB to keep groups from scattering due to my tornadoes and hurricanes. My favorite toon is built around this power and it would totally break my toon to remove the KB.

Right now I jump in the middle of large groups allowing arctic air and world of confusion to have them fight each other. Rooting them with frostbite is essential or the tornadoes and hurricanes would push them out of Arctic air's radius and I'd be toast. This play style works frightfully well (I fight +2 or +3 X8) and is loads of fun but it is totally dependent on spamming that -KB.

That said, I totally agree that the -KB makes ice slick useless and that stormies are a small percentage of ice controllers. Further ice/stormies who fight in melee range are rarer still. So if they change it I'll understand. I'll be depressed at losing such a fun toon, but I'll understand.

Now THAT would be nice. Even if it meant using a few precious slots being able to change KB to KD would make a number of sets more playable in teams. Having to slot to turn KB to KD would allow those who like the KB to keep it while allowing those who don't want it to get rid of it by using a slot.

Not to be pedantic, but Storm got some buffs over the first couple years of the game. O2 Boost got the end drain resistance and +perception added, Lightning Storm got a range/fire rate increase, Steamy Mist got Confuse resistance added and dropped its run speed debuff, and Freezing Rain started accepting accuracy enhancements.

I'd like the devs to add a chance for all attacks to crit when targeting drone is running, this would work thematically and increase damage.

What? Phase Shift is still a phase power. Assassin's Strike still retains its function as an interruptable, high damage power. They've altered the application or added functionality to powers by they haven't outright replaced them with different powers with different functions which is what the cottage rule served to protect against.

The cottage rule requires that the devs not change the execution mechanics of a power, eliminate a primary effect benefit of a power, or alter the order of a power within a powerset, without a balance-significant reason for doing so that cannot be satisfied in any other practical way.

That definition is canonical, and neither the gravity changes nor the stalker changes violated the rule in any way.

How does the changes to Stalkers account for the cottage rule? o.O It still works like before if you want it to, and now works even better when out of hide than it used to.

No cottage was broken.

Can't say anything about Gravity Control, as it never really caught my attention.

With all due respect, the early changes to Dark Miasma were pretty dramatic way back when, and the changes to Dark Armor toggles, Moment of Glory, Defiance, Vigilance and several others were mostly about player complaints, not some predetermined grand plan of balance. Many changes were for PvP, like travel power suppression, having no real need in PvE. The changes to Stalkers could have been accomplished by increasing the damage in other powers, or probably a hundred other ways. It was Castle that was the champion of that rule, one that has prevented improvements that need to be made.

The 'Cottage Rule' wasn't broken for any of those. Or for any of the changes to power sets like Energy Aura, which were even larger.

And remember, the 'Cottage Rule' is actually more of a guildline. If the Devs can alter a set so that the powers (and, more specifically, how the powers are slotted) don't change, they can avoid upsetting players by forcing Respecs on them. But they can - and will - throw the 'Cottage Rule' out the window if they can't find a better way.

Path of least resistance, and all of that...

1. Every developer adheres to the cottage rule. Every developer has, from Geko on down.

2. Long before there was a "cottage post" *I* posted the exact wording of the rules that comprised the "cottage" rule without calling them such, in reference to people making suggestions about radically altering powersets. Those were the rules Castle was *given* and understood he was required to operate within, long before he had the authority to make any such design rules himself. The notion that the cottage rule was either an invention of Castle's or that he was its primary adherent is actually extremely far off-base. As the design lead, the ultimate enforcer of the cottage rule is Positron. There would be no cottage rule if Positron didn't agree with it. Positron is singularly responsible for the design latitude of all of the game's designers.

3. Defiance and Vigilance have never violated the Cottage Rule. First of all, their creation cannot, by definition, break the cottage rule. Since that time, neither power has had a major effect removed, and neither power operates differently (they are both passives).

4. Mentioning Defiance and Vigilance suggests you don't know why the cottage rule exists. It basically exists because of the First Law of MMOs:

* No matter what it does or how it works or when you can use it, someone loves everything you make, and someone else hates it.

The fact that everything is hated by someone means you'll hear complaints about everything. The fact that everything is loved by someone means every time you change something you'll piss off someone else. The cottage rule is the *only* design rule that protects players. The *only* one. It says that the devs should not change something in a negative that will radically alter something players already have unless there's a very good reason for doing so. And that rule exists within the context of the rule that players should expect certain kinds of changes as a matter of course. Numerical tweaks to powers, for example. The rule covers changes larger than that. It covers changing clicks to toggles, or changing heals to defensive buffs. This is done only as a last resort as the devs see it.

Not as you see it, but as they see it. And every change you mention is either a change that did not remove an effect from a power (i.e. making Dark Armors non-exclusive is not a cottage rule violation because it does not in any way remove an effect from the player), numerical changes (which the cottage rule does not address), or stated to be related to balance (the most dramatic of which was probably the addition of Singularity to Gravity).

Its your opinion that the changes made to Stalkers could have been made in other ways, but the cottage rule doesn't mention your name or mine. Even so, what change made to stalkers was a cottage rule violation? I can't see one myself. What was removed from Stalkers without a good balance significant reason? What power changed mechanically in terms of its execution? What power changed its tier of availability? Those are the only three things the cottage rule covers.


But this bears repeating: the cottage rule is the only design rule, to my knowledge, that protects players. Every other design rules essentially tells the designers to either "do what they think is best" or "do what we've done in the past." One, and only one rule, says "don't change things players expect unless you have to." And laughably, its the rule that players ask to be repealed the most often. As if it was just a scribble on a piece of paper that could actually be repealed, and not an expression of the values of the developers that make the game that is not mutable.

In any case, the cottage rule does not stand in the way of anything except unnecessary changes. It protects some of the players from some of the other players that assume they know what the entire playerbase wants.

And of course, the rule is invoked by the players far more than the devs. Because while players may guess at what are and are not cottage rule violations, the devs themselves almost *never* state why they elect not to do something. They only say why they did do something after they've done it. They never say why they don't, because they know those reasons could change and what they don't do today they might do tomorrow. And they don't need to wade through all the nonsense of people throwing back their own reasons at them from long ago that aren't relevant any more.

More often than not, the reason why the devs aren't doing something a particular player wants isn't because of the cottage rule, but just because at the moment they don't want to. Think of all the things you aren't doing now, and ask yourself how many are because you just don't want to. That's the reason 99.9% of the time for the devs also, but no one wants to believe its just that simple. Probably because their idea is obviously so good the devs need more reason than that.

If I had room in my signature, I would add this quote to it.

Trickshooter's Characters | @Trickshooter @Brightside