So how do blasters feel about nukes going from scale 6.0 dmg to scale 4.0?

Adeon Hawkwood · 07-13-2012 09:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neogumbercules

If I am remembering correctly the TAoE nukes will recharge even faster than the PBAoE versions?

I think it's the other way around.

Aura_Familia · 07-13-2012 11:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Another_Fan

Remember you felt that way the next time you join a league and its 90% tanks,scrappers and brutes. It's really important in any game that you have similar levels of effectiveness amongst the pieces. Otherwise what you see are masses of a few particular pieces.

I couldn't give a rat's *** as long as the league succeeds.

Unlike some folks on these forums, I don't. *******. care. about team make up as long as the team can succeed.

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Another_Fan · 07-14-2012 01:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aura_Familia

I couldn't give a rat's *** as long as the league succeeds.

Unlike some folks on these forums, I don't. *******. care. about team make up as long as the team can succeed.

I was talking about having all the ATs perform well enough so you wouldn't have a reason to select on that basis, and you wouldn't have leagues composed of nothing but the "GOOD" ATs.

I have no idea what you think you are talking about or how it bears any relationship to what I said. It looks like you didn't as well.

Rakeeb · 07-14-2012 01:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Another_Fan

I was talking about having all the ATs perform well enough so you wouldn't have a reason to select on that basis, and you wouldn't have leagues composed of nothing but the "GOOD" ATs.

I have no idea what you think you are talking about or how it bears any relationship to what I said. It looks like you didn't as well.

This is actually a problem for Blasters. In progression content (eg: trying to do The Really Hard Way and that sort of thing) they aren't sturdy enough to last through incidental fire, and they don't deliver steady DPS on Tyrant in their role to justify bringing them to a party that is pushing content. They'll just fold, whereas Scrappers, Brutes, SoA's, and Stalkers will survive, do higher DPS than if the Blaster were alive, and take care of themselves long enough to make significant progress.

Arcanaville · 07-14-2012 03:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rakeeb

This is actually a problem for Blasters. In progression content (eg: trying to do The Really Hard Way and that sort of thing) they aren't sturdy enough to last through incidental fire, and they don't deliver steady DPS on Tyrant in their role to justify bringing them to a party that is pushing content. They'll just fold, whereas Scrappers, Brutes, SoA's, and Stalkers will survive, do higher DPS than if the Blaster were alive, and take care of themselves long enough to make significant progress.

Actually, that's a really bad example. Surviving Really Hard Way attempts is 90% skill, 10% archetype ability. Since lightning kills anyone that doesn't maneuver correctly. Generally, I tend to live longer on such runs and fire more consistently that most melee characters (who are under generally higher threat from high density lightning bursts from nearby players).

Blasters are more likely to die during Lambda attempts, during TPNs, during lots of incarnate content given players of equal skill. But not so much Really Hard Way. In fact, in an ironic twist in one hard way attempt I ended up dying often because far from being out DPSed, I was so good at sidestepping lightning and resuming attacking on my Blaster that Tyrant aggroed on me as the only thing dealing damage to him several times.

If anything, one of the big complaints about later trials is that they seem to deliberately try to make life difficult for melee relative to ranged archetypes.

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mercykilling · 07-14-2012 03:30 AM

Wow. Whatever happened to just playing the game and having fun?

Seems all anyone cares about any more is numbers. Minmaxed builds that can solo AV's and GM's. Crashless nukes.

It -makes sense in any MMO- to have singular bad guys that can wipe whole city blocks and possibly beat assembled heroes.

It -makes sense- that your super attack that you summon every ounce of energy to fire leaves you winded and unable to attack for a bit.

At least, it makes sense to me. Might not to everyone, I know.

Again, all the above is merely my opinion. Completely without basis in any other fact than my feelings. I do not wish to be "proven" wrong with a load of numbers, because I don't care about numbers. I care about what -I- call fun, and not what you call fun. (Insofar as my fun does not impede upon your fun)

Hyperstrike · 07-14-2012 03:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercykilling

Wow. Whatever happened to just playing the game and having fun?

Seems all anyone cares about any more is numbers. Minmaxed builds that can solo AV's and GM's. Crashless nukes.

It -makes sense in any MMO- to have singular bad guys that can wipe whole city blocks and possibly beat assembled heroes.

It -makes sense- that your super attack that you summon every ounce of energy to fire leaves you winded and unable to attack for a bit.

At least, it makes sense to me. Might not to everyone, I know.

Again, all the above is merely my opinion. Completely without basis in any other fact than my feelings. I do not wish to be "proven" wrong with a load of numbers, because I don't care about numbers. I care about what -I- call fun, and not what you call fun. (Insofar as my fun does not impede upon your fun)

Thanks for talking down about someone else's playstyle! Very broad-minded of you.

Some people play just to play the game.
Cool. Great. Fine. Wonderful.
Some people do it for goal-oriented "I want to do X, Y and Z" reasons.
Some people RP.
Some play "hardcore" (death = delete).
Some people are base editors.
Some people are AE mission designers.
Some people farm.
Some people market like maniacs.

And tons of other things I'm NOT going to waste time enumerating.
PLUS
Some people like playing numbers games (min-maxing). To them, tweaking up builds until they're so tight you couldn't pass an electron through any of their seams IS fun!

Plus, people tend to LIKE "winning". So gaining a statistical edge by tweaking one's build and being cognizant of the the real numbers behind everything allows people to come out of encounters successfully with greater frequency.

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Hopeling · 07-14-2012 03:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercykilling

It -makes sense- that your super attack that you summon every ounce of energy to fire leaves you winded and unable to attack for a bit.

It does make sense, but it is, in my own opinion, and apparently that of many others, thoroughly un-fun.

Whatever happened to just playing the game and not berating people for having fun?

Jabbrwock · 07-14-2012 07:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercykilling

Wow. Whatever happened to just playing the game and having fun?

Anybody can have fun with a set that works well and is properly balanced and effective.

Only people who don't care about performance can enjoy a set that does not and is not.

That's what happened to playing the game and having fun - the devs decided that the Blaster AT and nukes in blast sets in particular were not enjoyable to enough people, and so decided to spread the fun around, so that MORE PEOPLE COULD PLAY THE GAME AND HAVE FUN.

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Obitus · 07-14-2012 07:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercykilling

Wow. Whatever happened to just playing the game and having fun?

Seems all anyone cares about any more is numbers. Minmaxed builds that can solo AV's and GM's. Crashless nukes.

It -makes sense in any MMO- to have singular bad guys that can wipe whole city blocks and possibly beat assembled heroes.

It -makes sense- that your super attack that you summon every ounce of energy to fire leaves you winded and unable to attack for a bit.

At least, it makes sense to me. Might not to everyone, I know.

Again, all the above is merely my opinion. Completely without basis in any other fact than my feelings. I do not wish to be "proven" wrong with a load of numbers, because I don't care about numbers. I care about what -I- call fun, and not what you call fun. (Insofar as my fun does not impede upon your fun)

I am humbled by the intellectual rigor of your game-balance analysis. Thank you, sir, for enlightening all of us.

Oh, wait. Everything you said is irrelevant. Still, it wouldn't be the Blaster forum if there weren't somebody making the fatuous, and vaguely insulting, mechanics-don't-matter argument. So you got that going for you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze

Nice build

Rakeeb · 07-14-2012 07:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercykilling

Wow. Whatever happened to just playing the game and having fun?

Seems all anyone cares about any more is numbers. Minmaxed builds that can solo AV's and GM's. Crashless nukes.

It -makes sense in any MMO- to have singular bad guys that can wipe whole city blocks and possibly beat assembled heroes.

It -makes sense- that your super attack that you summon every ounce of energy to fire leaves you winded and unable to attack for a bit.

At least, it makes sense to me. Might not to everyone, I know.

Again, all the above is merely my opinion. Completely without basis in any other fact than my feelings. I do not wish to be "proven" wrong with a load of numbers, because I don't care about numbers. I care about what -I- call fun, and not what you call fun. (Insofar as my fun does not impede upon your fun)

Nothing you said makes sense in the inter-AT balance context of City of Heroes, and therefore your idea of fun impedes directly on my idea of fun, and I daresay the bulk of the playerbase.

An Electric Melee scrapper does not exhaust herself to turn into a lightning bolt, travel a short distance, and explode at the end, for instance. Nor does a Gravity controller collapse after ripping apart the gravitic constant of the universe and animating it into a controlled singularity.

As to your "large opponents should rock many players" item: I actually agree with you and don't like that the melee archetypes can become so strong that they can turn the bulk of the game's content into farmable content. Thing is, that's just my opinion, and lots of folks really enjoy doing that - building up true superheroes, if you will. While I'd love to see 'em nerfed for my own idealistic concepts of mathematical balance, it ain't gonna happen and if it did they'd all be pretty darn disappointed. So I keep my trap shut.

Lothic · 07-14-2012 07:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercykilling

It -makes sense- that your super attack that you summon every ounce of energy to fire leaves you winded and unable to attack for a bit.

At least, it makes sense to me. Might not to everyone, I know.

Again, all the above is merely my opinion. Completely without basis in any other fact than my feelings. I do not wish to be "proven" wrong with a load of numbers, because I don't care about numbers. I care about what -I- call fun, and not what you call fun. (Insofar as my fun does not impede upon your fun)

Having critical disadvantages related to superpowers makes sense to me if you're willing to roleplay something like that in a pen-n-paper based superhero game setting. I honestly believe that's the only place that your type of "fun" in this case is acceptable.

For better or worse it has been shown that the average MMO player absolutely HATES anything that even remotely weakens or reduces the effectiveness of their characters, even if it might make "sense" in certain situations. For example you may recall now much people screamed bloody murder over how relatively vulnerable Kheldians originally were to Quants/Voids. Sadly after their nerfing Quants/Voids effectively pose no unique "Kryptonite-like" threat to Kheldians anymore.

Frankly I'm surprised it took over 8 years to finally have crashing nukes be "nerfed" in this similar fashion. *shrugs*

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Rakeeb · 07-14-2012 08:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lothic

Having critical disadvantages related to superpowers makes sense to me if you're willing to roleplay something like that in a pen-n-paper based superhero game setting. I honestly believe that's the only place that your type of "fun" in this case is acceptable.

For better or worse it has been shown that the average MMO player absolutely HATES anything that even remotely weakens or reduces the effectiveness of their characters, even if it might make "sense" in certain situations. For example you may recall now much people screamed bloody murder over how relatively vulnerable Kheldians originally were to Quants/Voids. Sadly after their nerfing Quants/Voids effectively pose no unique "Kryptonite-like" threat to Kheldians anymore.

Frankly I'm surprised it took over 8 years to finally have crashing nukes be "nerfed" in this similar fashion. *shrugs*

A point of order: they still do a ton of extra damage to Khelds. It's just not irresistable at this point, which means they basically don't do anything, which means you're right and omgIneedtosleep

Garent · 07-14-2012 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercykilling

I care about what -I- call fun, and not what you call fun.

Would you like to participate in the discussion or did you just want to come in and tell us how little you care about the discussion?

Nethergoat · 07-14-2012 10:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lothic

Sadly after their nerfing Quants/Voids effectively pose no unique "Kryptonite-like" threat to Kheldians anymore.

This is why I might take another shot at playing one.

As you note, this kind of "game balance" works with IRL role playing because the GM is there to prevent it from becoming oppressive. When every spawn in every mission has the potential for harboring a Kryptonite machine gun, that's not fun. Or rather, it's Jack's Idea of Fun, which is a distant, deranged relative of the real thing.

On topic, I'm wildly happy with the proposed changes to Nukes.
I'll gladly trade a little damage for a lot of utility.

And hopefully Full Auto will have its target cap adjusted now.

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Fulmens · 07-14-2012 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercykilling

Wow. Whatever happened to just playing the game and having fun?

Seems all anyone cares about any more is numbers. Minmaxed builds that can solo AV's and GM's. Crashless nukes.

It -makes sense in any MMO- to have singular bad guys that can wipe whole city blocks and possibly beat assembled heroes.

It -makes sense- that your super attack that you summon every ounce of energy to fire leaves you winded and unable to attack for a bit.

At least, it makes sense to me. Might not to everyone, I know.

Again, all the above is merely my opinion. Completely without basis in any other fact than my feelings. I do not wish to be "proven" wrong with a load of numbers, because I don't care about numbers. I care about what -I- call fun, and not what you call fun. (Insofar as my fun does not impede upon your fun)

Why should you have to suck because you wanted to do something fun instead of making the Flavor of the Month?

The people who care about numbers are working to make things better for you. Even though you may find the work distasteful and unpleasant. Think of us like garbagemen. You don't have to watch us work if you don't want to.

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Agent White · 07-14-2012 12:03 PM

I agree slightly in that I think its very thematic to have a 'big boom' power that leaves you exhausted.

Problem is, the damage and effects done don't equal the cost. They're gimped. They do -more- damage than a standard power, yes, but they don't do -enough- damage for what it does to you. Even using it in the 'last ditch, panic button, omggonnadieifthisdoesn'twork' usually leaves you dead anyway.

And since the devs don't want to tweak the numbers up to make the reward equal the cost, I'm much happier they're willing to compromise and move the numbers down just a bit and remove the tremendous cost. I'm happy I will have a big flashy attack that may not necessarily be a super move, but it's still me throwing a giant lightning bolt at a group of enemies or exploding a neutron bomb out of my body to do a lot of damage.

So ya, it was thematic, but broken in practice. If it worked the way we'd hoped, sure, it would probably be worth keeping and using. As it is, it's not. You can work and set yourself up to try to leverage it, but really it's not worth the trouble. Now, they're taking most of that trouble out and you have an awesome big boom power to drop on mobs.

Aura_Familia · 07-14-2012 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Another_Fan

I was talking about having all the ATs perform well enough so you wouldn't have a reason to select on that basis, and you wouldn't have leagues composed of nothing but the "GOOD" ATs.

I have no idea what you think you are talking about or how it bears any relationship to what I said. It looks like you didn't as well.

There are no good or bad ATs. That was the point I was making.

The makeup of a league/team is irrelevant as long as the league succeeds.

This game is easy enough that any combination can work. My argument is that a majority of the player base does not select on the basis of good or bad ATs. Only us forum munchkins are that anal retentive.

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Garent · 07-15-2012 12:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aura_Familia

This game is easy enough that any combination can work. My argument is that a majority of the player base does not select on the basis of good or bad ATs.

For teaming yes, which is a godsend. People are more picky when they choose their own archetypes and powersets though. One of the reasons why this game is fun to me is because every character has the power to turn an imminent team wipe in to a victory. Power imbalances mean that some characters do this much more easily and consistently than others though. That's the problem I intend to change. Feeling useful on a team is integral to many people's fun.

Making sure all characters can have a noticeable impact on a team and can solo smoothly are my ultimate goals when it comes to powerset balance. Encouraging character variety in order to enrich the city of heroes experience is a secondary goal that comes about as a result of the first two. Making sure all people are accepted on a team isn't a goal that's on my radar, as it's something that I believe was accomplished a long, long time ago thanks to the game's structure, difficulty level, and player base.

Rakeeb · 07-15-2012 04:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aura_Familia

There are no good or bad ATs. That was the point I was making.

The makeup of a league/team is irrelevant as long as the league succeeds.

This game is easy enough that any combination can work. My argument is that a majority of the player base does not select on the basis of good or bad ATs. Only us forum munchkins are that anal retentive.

Bring 12 Blasters into the MoM iTrial, let me know how you do.

StratoNexus · 07-15-2012 06:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rakeeb

Bring 12 Blasters into the MoM iTrial, let me know how you do.

I am excited to see the 12 brutes or scrappers doing this as well!

Immediately jumping to all of one AT is disingenuous. A MoM trial with 4 buff/debuff, 8 other would be fine if the 8 other were all blasters, all dominators, all anything, or a mix (it would be good to have one or two meat-shields, not vital, depending on the buff/debuff, but generally good). Blasters are a fine addition to any trial and bring solid DPS as desired.

I am not saying the DPS they bring is high enough relative to the armors or control other damage dealers bring, but it is high enough that they are a great addition to any trial.

Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
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Exclius · 07-15-2012 10:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercykilling

I care about what -I- call fun, and not what you call fun. (Insofar as my fun does not impede upon your fun)

Well, if your fun would involve keeping the crashes on nukes, your fun would indeed be impeding on my fun.

Actually being able to USE Nova on a frequent basis, without detoggling and being effectively taken out of combat? That's fun. Vice versa? No, not to me. Probably not to anyone who's actually played one of the crashless nuke sets.

Also, if you have a good build, the crashless nukes end up doing more damage in the long run, because you're using them more often, and you aren't being taken out of combat from using it.

Agent White · 07-15-2012 10:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rakeeb

Bring 12 Blasters into the MoM iTrial, let me know how you do.

12 anything is going to have a harder time with MoM.

Just like conversely, 24 anything could probably do it without toooo much difficulty.

StratoNexus · 07-15-2012 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Agent White

12 anything is going to have a harder time with MoM.

Just like conversely, 24 anything could probably do it without toooo much difficulty.

MoM is max 16, but besides that, smaller teams on trials can be easier than larger ones. The devs have done a very good job scaling the trial difficulty to team size and it is a mistake to believe that max capacity is better.

Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.

Agent White · 07-15-2012 10:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by StratoNexus

MoM is max 16, but besides that, smaller teams on trials can be easier than larger ones. The devs have done a very good job scaling the trial difficulty to team size and it is a mistake to believe that max capacity is better.

Oop right. And I disagree. I've yet to be on a full league that's failed that wasn't trying for a specific badge. Yes tweaked builds at 50+3 could steamroll on the min. team size. But for average builds I'd rather have more bodies.