Powersets that need review
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2012-07-22 09:28 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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Rakeeb, I have been around since launch, took a 3 year break around the time of the big nerfs, and it is very obvious that the current crew is much more willing to make changes to the game than those even three years ago were. I too wish that certain changes were more forth-coming, but am happy that they are making the effort AND giving the playerbase an opportunity to give feedback whenever they DO.|
Originally Posted by Rakeeb
So now because true balance is "impossible", ie folks don't want to work that hard, we're trying to compromise with "fair"?
I didn't realize that Arbiter Hawk and Synapse were actually Castle. No compromises. Fix the game. It's not hard; it simply requires commitment. |
Your characterizations of the Developers and the Players is not helping your case, it is just making you look bad.
BIOSPARK :: DARKTHORN :: SKYGUARD :: WILDMAGE
HEATSINK :: FASTHAND :: POWERCELL :: RUNESTAFF
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An obsessive quest for balance has sucked the fun out of many MMOs, not to mention the PvP of this one.
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Originally Posted by EvilGeko
True balance isn't impossible, but it also isn't necessarily fun.
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I really should do something about this signature.
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Hey now, chill out. Castle did what he could when he had permission to do so, there is no reason for this. You come off as sounding entitled.
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Originally Posted by Rakeeb
So now because true balance is "impossible", ie folks don't want to work that hard, we're trying to compromise with "fair"?
I didn't realize that Arbiter Hawk and Synapse were actually Castle. No compromises. Fix the game. It's not hard; it simply requires commitment. |
My new Youtube Channel with CoH info
You might know me as FlintEastwood now on Freedom
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When you've worked as hard as I have to improve this or any game, much less the game developers themselves, you earn the right to judge work ethic. You are rapidly catapulting yourself into the realm of stakeless kibitzer.
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Originally Posted by Rakeeb
So now because true balance is "impossible", ie folks don't want to work that hard, we're trying to compromise with "fair"?
I didn't realize that Arbiter Hawk and Synapse were actually Castle. No compromises. Fix the game. It's not hard; it simply requires commitment. |
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
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IMO it would be far less disruptive to simply swap out the +def in the two unique +def IO's and add the equivilent resist or new absorb.|
Originally Posted by Rakeeb
I'd honestly go with that, swap out some of the +Def for +Res. The diversity would do the IO system good.
I'd still want to turn down the numbers, though. |
This would make it harder to softcap builds and add value back to tanks higher base numbers.
L50s: Tanks: Cryofission - Ice/EM - Dr Celsius - Fire/Ice - Saint George - SD/SS | Controllers: Psichosis - Ill/Kin - Major Chaos - Ill/Stm | Scrappers - Neutron Crusader - DM/SR
Currently Levelling: Angelic Blade - BS/WP Scrapper | Seeds of Destruction - Plant/Kin Controller
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True balance = rock paper scissors.
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Originally Posted by EvilGeko
True balance isn't impossible, but it also isn't necessarily fun.
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Bah, I much prefer the strategic depth of Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock.
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Originally Posted by Agent White
True balance = rock paper scissors.
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That is not logical.
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Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Bah, I much prefer the strategic depth of Rock, Paper Scissors, Lizard, Spock.
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Throwing darts at the board to see if something sticks.....
Come show your resolve and fight my brute!
Tanks: Gauntlet, the streak breaker and you!
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Originally Posted by PapaSlade
Rangle's right....this is fun.
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That's one kind of balance: a game with three moves in which none of the legal moves is intrinsically superior to the other two in terms of the probability of victory.|
Originally Posted by Agent White
True balance = rock paper scissors.
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The problem in a game like City of Heroes is that if you define "legal move" too expansively true balance is an intractable goal. At every moment in time we are allowed to do a wide variety of things from moving to activating powers. We can't design the game so that every single move has intrinsically equal value.
We can, however, decide which moves must be equal, and which moves are allowed to have variable value, such that its the responsibility of the player to decide which of them to best use. And in a game like CoH, those moves should be the immutable character creation moves. In other words, archetype choice, primary powerset choice, secondary powerset choice, and origin choice. All other moves are either not directly relevant to gameplay or mutable and thus reversible. No archetype choice should incur a higher disadvantage over the others, and neither should any powerset combination, within the context of what we intend core gameplay to be in this game. Namely, leveling, playing the core content, and having the opportunity (but not requirement) to leverage character progression systems.
That's achievable, and achievable without radical upheaval.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
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Forgive me if this has already been mentioned, but would it be possible to floor defense at 0%? This would allow adding defense debuffs into the game without excessively penalizing sets that have no (native) defense and put more relative value into having DDR for folks that are going to rely on defense.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Its ironic that the best way I can see to adjust for the proliferation of defense bonuses in a way that makes defense sets more balanced in performance across higher end builds is to slowly escalate critter defense debuffing.
Praetorian tohit, by comparison, is the worst possible way to do that in the general case. |
For example, A DA scrapper (with cloak of darkness), an SR scrapper, and an un-io'ed Regen scrapper walk into a bar. They get blasted with a hellion's machine gun burst (-6.5% def). The DA scrapper loses the benefit of Cloak of Darkness (since it's less than 6.5% defense) and some of his IO bonuses. The SR scrapper loses a smidge of his considerable defense, but not much. The Regen scrapper, who never bothered to IO for defense loses nothing. Perhaps I'm wrong about how DDR works, or the mechanics of it, but it would seem to accomplish the goals we're trying to achieve (make innate defense from secondaries that rely on defense more valuable than defense gained from IOs). I don't know enough to know if this would be do-able with the system as it exists.
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Originally Posted by Comicsluvr
Of course it's hard. The fact that it requires commitment PROVES that it's hard. Anything that really needs to be done requires commitment and is hard.
New dance emote? No problem. Didn't really need to be done. Requires very little commitment. Fixing everything wrong with an 8-year old MMO without completely destroying the game? VERY hard and requires massive commitment...and money. You gonna pay for it? Didn't think so... |
There is also the fact that all the changes, the time and the money can all go in the toilet. I already mentioned SWG earlier, and that is the last thing any MMO wants is to do is make it's player base so mad they quit. Then at the same time the bad press scares any new person away from the game.
Dirges
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It would definitely be possible. Defense already has a minimum floor -100% for both players and critters so presumably the devs could make the floor for Players 0% and leave the critter floor at -100%. |
Originally Posted by Valorin
Forgive me if this has already been mentioned, but would it be possible to floor defense at 0%? This would allow adding defense debuffs into the game without excessively penalizing sets that have no (native) defense and put more relative value into having DDR for folks that are going to rely on defense.
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I'm not sure if that would be a good thing or not in the long run but it should certainly be possible.
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The problem with this is that even con minions only have a 50% chance to hit you to begin with... and that MOST characters don't start out with any kinds of defense. There'd be little point in making Def debuffs only affect characters with +Defense short of specifically penalizing those characters.|
Originally Posted by Valorin
Forgive me if this has already been mentioned, but would it be possible to floor defense at 0%? This would allow adding defense debuffs into the game without excessively penalizing sets that have no (native) defense and put more relative value into having DDR for folks that are going to rely on defense.
For example, A DA scrapper (with cloak of darkness), an SR scrapper, and an un-io'ed Regen scrapper walk into a bar. They get blasted with a hellion's machine gun burst (-6.5% def). The DA scrapper loses the benefit of Cloak of Darkness (since it's less than 6.5% defense) and some of his IO bonuses. The SR scrapper loses a smidge of his considerable defense, but not much. The Regen scrapper, who never bothered to IO for defense loses nothing. Perhaps I'm wrong about how DDR works, or the mechanics of it, but it would seem to accomplish the goals we're trying to achieve (make innate defense from secondaries that rely on defense more valuable than defense gained from IOs). I don't know enough to know if this would be do-able with the system as it exists. |
A -Def debuff is supposed to make it easier for a critter to hit you. This would not happen against most Blasters, Kheldians, Dominators, Controllers, Masterminds or Defenders. And all of THEM have other means of mitigating damage. But if a Scrapper or tank, who's main mitigation is defense + kill, loses that defense, it puts them at a disadvantage compared to all other ATs, at least, hypothetically.
-STEELE =)
Allied to all sides so that no matter what, I'll come out on top!
Oh, and Crimson demands you play this arc-> Twisted Knives (MA Arc #397769)
Maybe instead of focusing on the "fix" we should be thinking about the "future."
To me the "where do we go from here?" part is what is looming for City of Heroes. Specifically, I mean what does the game build on when Defense, Resistance, and other systems are pushed to their limits? That is the critical aspect of "balance" to me. I think that rephrased that way, it's easier to make a case for why some systems could use revisions.
While I don't think it means dredging up entire existing systems and replacing them, what it does mean to me is that perhaps some assumptions we make about how systems work as the character reaches the highest echelons of play would evolve. We've already seen a small bit of that in the incarnate content, and with scripted fights that undo many basic assumptions people make about gameplay.
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When they fix their game, they prove that they're not bad. Until they fix their game, or give real indications that they're trying to fix their game (i.e. not talk - roll fixes onto the beta server for testing, and be willing to go through a process of rapid iteration... Bio Armor's test cycle is a perfect example of this), then they've decided to continue to be bad, because the problem feels too big to solve.|
Originally Posted by Biospark
Rakeeb, I have been around since launch, took a 3 year break around the time of the big nerfs, and it is very obvious that the current crew is much more willing to make changes to the game than those even three years ago were. I too wish that certain changes were more forth-coming, but am happy that they are making the effort AND giving the playerbase an opportunity to give feedback whenever they DO.
Your characterizations of the Developers and the Players is not helping your case, it is just making you look bad. |
On the Bio Armor example - I think that's what's really got me up in arms. Synapse demonstrated that when he cares, when he's engaged, he can do it right. Bio Armor went through a real wringer in a two-week period. We had something like 6-7 iterations, lots of commenting, fixes being issued for problems encountered during the test cycle. That was great work! The end product looked and felt capable, was strong and suited itself to multiple playstyles.
Would that they'd be willing to do that with ongoing fixes. They should have rolled the Snipe change immediately onto the beta servers for player interaction, to see where the system broke and where it needed fixing. Did they? No, of course not. Rather, they'll pack them all into a massive beta test for i24, with tons of other variables ALSO changed, and not be able to iterate on set balance properly prior to launch.
If other, more successful games can all do it, then I think that Arbiter Hawk and Synapse can do it if they really want to.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
When you've worked as hard as I have to improve this or any game, much less the game developers themselves, you earn the right to judge work ethic. You are rapidly catapulting yourself into the realm of stakeless kibitzer.
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Correct - there's a homogenization line that has to be carefully respected when you're bringing sets into alignment. Now I'm totally fine with a large degree of homogenization, so long as core flavor is left in, and I recognise that I'm a rarity in that sense. I don't expect to get that. I just don't want a situation like we have now, where ATs and powersets are so far away from each other that it's actually stupid - like really dumb - to play certain sets because they're just that bad comparatively. |
Originally Posted by EvilGeko
True balance isn't impossible, but it also isn't necessarily fun.
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It's not cool for players to roll up bad sets out of ignorance, because they're new, and then be a bystander to a team of steamrolling melee types.
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| If [URLs redacted] can all do it, then I think that Arbiter Hawk and Synapse can do it if they really want to. |
Let's leave the makers of Always Online Auction House 3 out as as example company models we want to emulate. There isn't a company in recent memory that has a relationship that adversarial with their own playerbases.
we all know that there are three fixes to the explosion of +def.
make the soft cap lower by AT.
Enemies hit tankers minimum of 5%
scrappers and brutes minimum of 10%
Stalkers minimum of 15%
squishies minimum of 20%
or nerf IO sets so the bonus is much less for +def
or nerf IO sets so that the bonuses do not stack as much as they do now.
The right way to do it is adjusting the soft cap by AT. Very painful for those who rely on it, but the game was never intended to have every AT have the same maxed defense as SR scrappers.
But most players probably do not know or care about soft cap. They don't have massive IO builds to max def. The people who care are the same people you will upset with the change. So you just live with knowing that the game is a joke for players who want to maximize their characters - they get the benefit and the stupidity of it.
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Well the Standard Code Rant applies but given what we do know this is pretty much impossible. The soft cap exists because it's the point where a standard NPC's pre-accuracy chance to hit will be at the minimum allowed by the system (5%). So to do that the devs would have to re-write the entire combat engine so that base To Hit varied depending on the target.
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Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
make the soft cap lower by AT.
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I think it is unrealistic to expect any sort of nerf to existing set bonuses.
Alienating the player base at large because a few malcontents don't approve of the power levels possible is not going to help the game it'll kill it.
That's all I really have to say. You can spout your "balance" rhetoric all you want but at the end of the day Paragon Studios needs money to survive. Any major nerfs on the scale of ED/GDN (which is what you guys are basically talking about doing) would kill the game.
If we have to lose you as subscribers for not changing things to your taste vs. losing the whole game over a change that would be so vastly unpopular as to decimate the player base we currently have then so be it.
Jem - Ill/Rad Controller Lv 50+3 Nic - Mind/Psi Dominator Lv 50+3 Lady Liberation - Invuln/SS Tanker Lv 50+1 Invicitx - Demon/Pain Mastermind Lv 50+1 Celeste - Emp/Arch Defender Lv 50+1 Nightsilver - DB/WP Scrapper Lv 34 Dusk Howl - StJ/Regen Brute Lv 32 Kyriani - Time/Energy Defender Lv 41Psifire - FF/Psi Defender Lv 50
Star Lighter - LB/LA Peacebringer Lv 30
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Or you could do it the dirty hack way and have inherents give natural defense bonsues or penalties. The soft cap would still be in place but different ATs would require different amounts to reach it. |
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Well the Standard Code Rant applies but given what we do know this is pretty much impossible. The soft cap exists because it's the point where a standard NPC's pre-accuracy chance to hit will be at the minimum allowed by the system (5%). So to do that the devs would have to re-write the entire combat engine so that base To Hit varied depending on the target.
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But the concept is kind of dumb in general, it would be balancing ATs around the high end.
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Originally Posted by Agent White
Or you could do it the dirty hack way and have inherents give natural defense bonsues or penalties. The soft cap would still be in place but different ATs would require different amounts to reach it.
But the concept is kind of dumb in general, it would be balancing ATs around the high end. |
Well, this basically already happens, but by-AT-by-powerset instead of just by-AT. In a way you could say that Weave does almost exactly this though.
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This is likely not strictly correct. They were not intended to have it all the time, but I am pretty sure they were intended to be able to have it part time through inspires (not the same soft cap in the sense we think of it today, but the ability to temporarily rise above).|
Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
but the game was never intended to have every AT have the same maxed defense as SR scrappers.
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I would be perfectly OK if any and all of my soft-capped characters were nerfed, but I am less OK if inspires do not let me cheat the system. How inspires work is one of the things I love about this game relative to the painful cooldowns and limits on consumables in other games. I much prefer the limit on the number you can carry, as opposed to the number you can use per fight or unit of time.
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.
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The thing is that wouldn't really give the result Dug wants. Squishy characters would still be able to get to the defense softcap, it would just make melee characters get there even easier. So basically you give a large defensive buff to melee characters who don't really need a large defensive buff.
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Originally Posted by Agent White
Or you could do it the dirty hack way and have inherents give natural defense bonsues or penalties. The soft cap would still be in place but different ATs would require different amounts to reach it.
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I didn't realize that Arbiter Hawk and Synapse were actually Castle.
No compromises. Fix the game. It's not hard; it simply requires commitment.
Of course it's hard. The fact that it requires commitment PROVES that it's hard. Anything that really needs to be done requires commitment and is hard.
New dance emote? No problem. Didn't really need to be done. Requires very little commitment.
Fixing everything wrong with an 8-year old MMO without completely destroying the game? VERY hard and requires massive commitment...and money. You gonna pay for it? Didn't think so...
"Comics, you're not a Mastermind...you're an Overlord!"