THB's List of Suggestions for Fixing the Game!
By
Aett_Thorn,
Posted on: 2012-08-20 22:54 in Suggestions and Ideas
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I get the gist of what you're saying, and don't disagree with the general point about the frustration of missing with very long animations, but Rain of Fire (and other such powers) is a bad example. AFAIK, it makes a separate hit check for each tick. It's a whole bunch of separate attacks delivered over a period of time, not a DoT that is applied all at once upon application; that's why enemies stop taking damage if they walk out of it (and start taking damage if they walk into it).
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Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
Another thing that just came to mind here is Rain of Fire, and similar powers.
*Use RoF against a single target.* "Ha! You missed me!" "...But you're right in front of me. I saw the fire hit you in the head. The fire is STILL hitting you in the head. I'm looking right at it." "Nope! You missed!" |
#4 I agree with. Unresistable attacks are a cheap gimmick that totally make
your build irrelevant, regardless how much you've put into it.
The first 3 can be handled by proper slotting, or bringing the correct inspirations. Cutting short animations would dumb down the game, and remove a bit of strategy.
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Originally Posted by Hopeling
I get the gist of what you're saying, and don't disagree with the general point about the frustration of missing with very long animations, but Rain of Fire (and other such powers) is a bad example. AFAIK, it makes a separate hit check for each tick. It's a whole bunch of separate attacks delivered over a period of time, not a DoT that is applied all at once upon application; that's why enemies stop taking damage if they walk out of it (and start taking damage if they walk into it).
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I kind of think a reasonable solution would be a separate tohit check for each tick of damage. I mentioned ST's specifically because that's when the silliness is at its peak of obviousness. If rains already make a separate check for each tick, Shadow Maul and other multi-striking attacks should do the same.
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See I'm trying to avoid dumbing down the game with the mez thing by adding an active means of "earning" mez/debuff removal outside of just chugging inspirations. |
Originally Posted by Hercules
#4 I agree with. Unresistable attacks are a cheap gimmick that totally make
your build irrelevant, regardless how much you've put into it. The first 3 can be handled by proper slotting, or bringing the correct inspirations. Cutting short animations would dumb down the game, and remove a bit of strategy. |
I don't think cutting animations on long animating attacks, specifically things like shadow maul, and other multi-hit attacks would dumb down the game, I think it would help the game make more sense while removing what I consider to be excesive penalties for failed tohit rolls.
And no build strategy in the world outside of Incarnates will give Blasters and other squishy sets status protection or debuff resistance.
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Originally Posted by Stone Daemon
My favorite part is missing when I attack an inanimate object.
"Damn you box, quit moving! I'm trying to punch you!" "Well maybe if you quit drinking before eight in the morning you could!" "Wait, did you just talk to me?" "Yeah, what of it?" "OMG! You're not supposed to talk!" "You heroes and your stereotyping. And I thought I had problems." |
Damn boxes. This is supposed to be a judgment free zone.
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But RoF already does that.|
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
I kind of think a reasonable solution would be a separate tohit check for each tick of damage. I mentioned ST's specifically because that's when the silliness is at its peak of obviousness.
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But doing that to Shadow Maul and other powers like it would be a decent nerf to those powers in many situations. Average damage would remain about the same, but if +ToHit buffs ran out during the animation, you'd suddenly lose damage potential for the power.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
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"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
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Yea I meant to mention that and forgot, I was editing the conclusion into my thoughts as you posted this, hah.|
Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn
But RoF already does that.
But doing that to Shadow Maul and other powers like it would be a decent nerf to those powers in many situations. Average damage would remain about the same, but if +ToHit buffs ran out during the animation, you'd suddenly lose damage potential for the power. |
I don't think losing a tohit buff should matter when considering this tbh.
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What would that do for stalkers?
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Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
If rains already make a separate check for each tick, Shadow Maul and other multi-striking attacks should do the same.
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The problem is that its relatively easy to make both single characters and teams of characters essentially indestructible. Not almost indestructible: absolutely indestructible to all reasonable threats. The game allows us to build and buff to extremely high levels of power, and the corner cases are simply too extreme to balance around normally. So this is not a "creativity problem." You really have only three choices:|
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
4.) No more unresistable, indefensible damage.
We have exotic damage types for a reason- Toxic and Psionic damage should be doing plenty for Dev's to have options to design challenging content. If you think everything you can think of is too easy, that doesn't give you license to stop being creative and start cheating. It's not fun to build a high end Tank, only to have it trivialized by a type of damage that doesn't even exist in the game for players. This goes for defense too- No more "unpositioned non-existent-because it's-special" attacks. If I have 45% defense to melee, ranged and AOE attacks, I don't care if the attack is Psionic, Lethal or Gubbly-Gobbly-Marauder-Chugged-A-Beer. I don't expect it to have more than a 5% chance to hit me. It's just illogical, and it goes against everything that we've learned by playing the game. No attack from an NPC should be indefensible. That's not intuitive or challenging, it's just a cheap trick. When explaining how defense and resistance works to new players, should I be saying, "Building defense is awesome! Until you get attacked 3 times, and all your defense is gone!" Or, "Tanks are really survivable, they can protect their team by being on the front lines! Until a damage type that doesn't exist one shots them!" Or, "This Scrapper will do awesome damage! Until he gets hit with a certain kind of power that makes it so he can't even HIT anything, and then he'll just die!" None of these things are good. Please fix them. |
1. Take away that maximum defensive capability, and all that implies. The law of unintended consequences will guarantee that when you take away the absolute high end, that will ripple down to the concept builders who will also be nerfed.
2. Increase the raw numbers of the critters. Its not hard to just increase damage until it can penetrate high resistance. Just ask Bobcat. The problem is that by the time damage gets high enough for min/maxed tankers to notice, its also obliterating everything else. The problem here is dynamic range. The strongest possible defensive builds are several orders of magnitude stronger than even the median defensive build. You can't really design threat around that wide of a dynamic range of character and team ability without something to attenuate the range of performance you have to design around.
3. Metagame. Use mechanics and metagames to level the playing field. And to be honest, unresistable damage is no less gimmicky than up/down/left/right to break mez. The latter just appeals to a different kind of gamer, but it also turns off gamers not interested in that form of metagaming.
The metagaming the devs add to the content isn't always optimal, but that's not the same thing as saying those mechanics should never be used. The alternatives are generally less palatable overall.
Plus:
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| If I have 45% defense to melee, ranged and AOE attacks, I don't care if the attack is Psionic, Lethal or Gubbly-Gobbly-Marauder-Chugged-A-Beer. I don't expect it to have more than a 5% chance to hit me. It's just illogical, and it goes against everything that we've learned by playing the game. |
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Theoretically, sure- But that wouldn't be how it actually played out. User error still causes a large amount of deaths on incarnate trials, and objective-driven phases like powering up terminals in Keyes and synchronizing glowies in TPN still allow for intuitive and challenging gameplay that doesn't turn conventional survivability on its head. Players are still routinely defeated by standard resistable/defensible attacks during trials as well- Being overwhelmed by adds is a fairly common cause of defeat during parts of many trials, and they deal conventional damage.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The problem is that its relatively easy to make both single characters and teams of characters essentially indestructible. Not almost indestructible: absolutely indestructible to all reasonable threats. The game allows us to build and buff to extremely high levels of power, and the corner cases are simply too extreme to balance around normally. So this is not a "creativity problem." You really have only three choices:
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I just don't agree that unresistable damage is the best way to avoid trivializing content. If that were true and players could be made 'literally indestructible,' every standard level 50 TF would be done as a master run without batting an eyelash. While sure, it would be theoretically possible to time barrier casts and Support Hybrid durations in a way that could have this effect, it would hardly be as easy or common as you seem to think.
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Plus: That would only be true if critters were not allowed to possess any tohit buffs and any accuracy buffs at all, ever. I don't see how that's either feasible or even desirable. |
Editing to address this:
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| Increase the raw numbers of the critters. Its not hard to just increase damage until it can penetrate high resistance. Just ask Bobcat. The problem is that by the time damage gets high enough for min/maxed tankers to notice, its also obliterating everything else. The problem here is dynamic range. The strongest possible defensive builds are several orders of magnitude stronger than even the median defensive build. You can't really design threat around that wide of a dynamic range of character and team ability without something to attenuate the range of performance you have to design around. |
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Not all tanks are loaded with resist. There are def and regen based tankers that would be pulverized the first time they get hit by 2 attacks that are meant to just dent a resist based tanker.
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Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
I would actually prefer increased raw damage for Incarnate AV's over unresistable/indefensible gimmick attacks. This would give Tanks an actual purpose
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1. No, because then they hit level 20 and are in for a rude awakening when they no longer can hold end (and honestly I Don't start having end problems till post 20)
2. No, because there is such a thing as making the game TOO EASY, and unless i am mistaken there is a slight recoupe to your end when you miss already. and they made the run jump end healthregen auto powers you get instead of having to select them
3. No, this is what the little purple inspirations are for. (the ones with out the shield)
4. No, simply cause then you'd have tanks brutes and scrappers who could go toe to toe with the likes of Maurader, Night star and Tyrant in the itrials W/o ever taking a lick of damage. and a good number of indefensible attacks can be run from, its called timing. You back away on your second warning , you back away when you are warned that you are about to be killed when marked for death. EVERY MMO has boss mobs that have attacks you can't defend against heck a few have such nasty ones that if you don't down the boss in x time you all die or if you are in the range of the cone or wave or aoe you instantly die there is no it does damage X and you have X life you just die.
Thing is this game isn't that hard, I am fairly casual player, I play maybe 20 hrs a week if that and i can still get a character from 1-50 in 2-3 weeks and even itrials aren't that hard as long as half the people listen
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I've been equally advocating a relative buff for defense sets, if we assume 'unresistable' damage is still going to be used. Also don't forget about the buff that building for resistance in general is going to bring with the next issue.|
Originally Posted by Starsman
Not all tanks are loaded with resist. There are def and regen based tankers that would be pulverized the first time they get hit by 2 attacks that are meant to just dent a resist based tanker.
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To paraphrase from earlier, retype the currently unresistable attacks as Psi/Toxic and to add on a bit, scale the damage on them up and keep the ToHit/position check as incarnate level AOE damage. Alternatively, I've mentioned adding level 50 +def/+res to Incarnate damage for Tanking AT's- Perhaps just Tankers themselves since this would give the AT a much needed relative buff.
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See, this hasn't been my experience on any of my characters aside from maybe my DA Brute. I find that generally by level 20 I have enough slots to work with to get my endurance under control, whereas before that level I feel like my slots are always stretched way too thin to properly enhance powers for anything primarily aside from endurance reduction.|
Originally Posted by Xenophage
1. No, because then they hit level 20 and are in for a rude awakening when they no longer can hold end (and honestly I Don't start having end problems till post 20)
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| 2. No, because there is such a thing as making the game TOO EASY, and unless i am mistaken there is a slight recoupe to your end when you miss already. and they made the run jump end healthregen auto powers you get instead of having to select them |
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| 3. No, this is what the little purple inspirations are for. (the ones with out the shield) |
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| 4. No, simply cause then you'd have tanks brutes and scrappers who could go toe to toe with the likes of Maurader, Night star and Tyrant in the itrials W/o ever taking a lick of damage. |
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well there are stronger versions then Luck, I guess i have never been so hopelessly mezzed that one of those babys doesn't get me out of mez lock long enough to kick ***.|
Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
Oh, really? So lucks are going to single handedly break mez and buff tohit and defense out of the red? There's already strong support on the forums for mez/debuff suppression because the stacking effects are excessive. This isn't just my opinion, so I haven't been focusing this thread on it. I've been making a separate point for active means of EARNING mez/debuff removal outside of just "chug all yer potionz lol." |
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| How do you figure? I've seen Lambda leagues fail due to overwhelming Add's. I've seen Tanks die during BAF just trying to PULL the AV's. User error and conventional damage can still defeat player characters more than you seem to be willing to admit. Those tanks and brutes who can sit there and Tank the hell out of things indiscriminately will be the ones who earned it by building high end Tanks and Brutes. If people who utilize the IO system intelligently and invest heavily in the best stuff aren't rewarded through gameplay, what is the point in even having a build metagame at all? We might as well all go back to SO's. |
I know this cause I have seen people do similar things in this game and in other games in the past. Not sure if you where around for super speed fire tanks who could agro whole maps take nearly no damage, but its kind of akin to that. Also,thing is changing how an AT works upsets people quite often (stalker assassin buff being the exception) people get used to playing thier character a certain way learn what powers to take and not take how to slot them to make them work in a manner that suits them then they get redone and poof they are broken, I know lots of people who stopped playing characters they worked very hard to build due to AT changes (some I agreed with some I didn't)
in all honesty i can see why you made the suggestions you did, in the end i just think they will either do more harm then good or just aren't necessary.
In the end we can agree to disagree, at least i am not one of those people who simply says no with out giving you reasons.
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/signed |
Thirty-Seven has it: Agreed, Kazz... a lot. Also, there are a lot of people who play this game becaquse it doesn't have twitchy gameplay. I recall several posts by folks with disabilities who love this game: a victim of a stroke, a guy sans one arm, I think there was a person with some type of coordination disorder as well. Let us not forget about those folks. |
I'm here (well, one reason) because it's NOT twitch play, simply because I don't like it.
Dec out.
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I find this unnecessary. Easy game is easy already and your time spent below level 20 is quite short in most cases. |
TwoHeadedBoy wants the list: First of all, I know a lot of these issues boil down to the fact that COH is just old. Given the assumed interest in modernizing the game and competing in a market that isn't just people who already like COH anyways though, here are my top suggestions for improving the gameplay experience. 1.) Cut endurance costs on all powers before level 20 by 50%. I'm not saying that the endurance costs of the actual powers should be increased that drastically, just that all characters below level 20 should be granted a 50% global endurance cost reduction on every power they use. There's nothing fun about having to use rest every third or fourth group because your endurance is running out, and with hardly any inspiration slots to speak of at that point, pre-buying blues isn't an option- Not to mention most new players wouldn't even think that far ahead. |
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2.) Cut the endurance cost in half, and remove the animation penalty from all powers that miss. There's nothing sillier than watching a low level character use Shadow Maul, have them know that they missed already, and then just keep punching. This is another part of the game that's just frustrating, and not fun or engaging in any way. I can't see it having a positive effect on any new players. |
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3.) Make the mez and debuff systems more reasonable. I believe that all mezzes and debuffs should be able to be actively removed- My personal choice would be an intuitive pop up text that states exactly what debuff/mez you are afflicted by, and allows you to press a random key or sequence of keys in order to break the negative effect on your character. This would mean that there would be no more "perma held" situations- If there's nothing you can do about a mez but click a break free, it's not challenging. It's not fun. It just comes down to a random generator that in no way reflects player skill or character ability. The same thing applies to massive stacked debuffs- If you're fighting enemies with a lot of -tohit and you don't have Aim, or 20 yellows sitting in your tray, you can't hit your enemies. Forget all the global accuracy slotting you have, forget trying to fight through it. Once the game decides you can't hit your enemies, you just lose. This works in reverse too via defense debuffs. The point is that this is a very dated and unintelligent aspect of the game. It's not fun or challenging to be told that you can't do anything, better luck next time, you lose. An active mez/debuff removal system is necessary in order to keep the game challenging while rewarding player skill and character strength. |
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4.) No more unresistable, indefensible damage. We have exotic damage types for a reason- Toxic and Psionic damage should be doing plenty for Dev's to have options to design challenging content. If you think everything you can think of is too easy, that doesn't give you license to stop being creative and start cheating. It's not fun to build a high end Tank, only to have it trivialized by a type of damage that doesn't even exist in the game for players. This goes for defense too- No more "unpositioned non-existent-because it's-special" attacks. If I have 45% defense to melee, ranged and AOE attacks, I don't care if the attack is Psionic, Lethal or Gubbly-Gobbly-Marauder-Chugged-A-Beer. I don't expect it to have more than a 5% chance to hit me. It's just illogical, and it goes against everything that we've learned by playing the game. No attack from an NPC should be indefensible. That's not intuitive or challenging, it's just a cheap trick. When explaining how defense and resistance works to new players, should I be saying, "Building defense is awesome! Until you get attacked 3 times, and all your defense is gone!" Or, "Tanks are really survivable, they can protect their team by being on the front lines! Until a damage type that doesn't exist one shots them!" Or, "This Scrapper will do awesome damage! Until he gets hit with a certain kind of power that makes it so he can't even HIT anything, and then he'll just die!" |
I think we mostly disagree on philosophy. I'd rather figure out new tactics to get around stuff than have the game just drop it in my lap.
Dec out.
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I'm confused as to how punching some keys on your keyboard is "earning" anything any more than clicking a break free.
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TwoHeadedBoy has an odd view: Oh, really? So lucks are going to single handedly break mez and buff tohit and defense out of the red? There's already strong support on the forums for mez/debuff suppression because the stacking effects are excessive. This isn't just my opinion, so I haven't been focusing this thread on it. I've been making a separate point for active means of EARNING mez/debuff removal outside of just "chug all yer potionz lol." |
Dec out.
No to all.. What don't you like a challenge?
50% too much if any.. best 10%
Leave end as it is.. builds nowadays can easily counter that.
unresis undef damage? who does that? hami .. oh i see him everyday lol.
next.
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Let's see...|
Originally Posted by HardRider
unresis undef damage? who does that? hami .. oh i see him everyday lol.
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Marauder
Antimatter
Battle Maiden
Tyrant
Crystal Titan
Just off the top of my head.
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Why not just remove the endurance bar and everything associated with it instead? |
Cut endurance costs on all powers before level 20 by 50%. I'm not saying that the endurance costs of the actual powers should be increased that drastically, just that all characters below level 20 should be granted a 50% global endurance cost reduction on every power they use. There's nothing fun about having to use rest every third or fourth group because your endurance is running out, and with hardly any inspiration slots to speak of at that point, pre-buying blues isn't an option- Not to mention most new players wouldn't even think that far ahead. |
It would serve the same purpose, since what you're basically asking for here is to make it so endurance is NEVER a factor you need to consider at any point in the game.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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If memory serves, the crystal titan and hamidon do their own kinds of damage that aren't unique so much as missing from the roster, which (h)ambrosia grant resistance to.
| Crystal Titan |
Add to your list Group Fly which has a very poor set up and further add Soul Extraction that requires Undead mastermind to summon a pet then kill him off then summon soul extraction pet, then wait for the recharge to summon that pet yet again. Which in turn eats into your Soul extraction timer.
1. Why Soft Cap is Important : http://dechskaison.blogspot.com/2011...important.html
2. Limits: http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Limits
3. Attack Mechanics: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Attack_Mechanics
4. Rule of Five: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Rule_o...e_Law_of_Fives
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Even if that's true, you're splitting hairs. Their damage cannot be avoided or resisted by any existing powers.
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Originally Posted by Tidbit Jr.
If memory serves, the crystal titan and hamidon do their own kinds of damage that aren't unique so much as missing from the roster, which (h)ambrosia grant resistance to.
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*Use RoF against a single target.*
"Ha! You missed me!"
"...But you're right in front of me. I saw the fire hit you in the head. The fire is STILL hitting you in the head. I'm looking right at it."
"Nope! You missed!"
So with that in mind, if I use knock-out blow, and it misses an invulnerability tank, should it play the animation or not? It's not an "Oh crap, she dodged it." it's an "Oh crap, that hurt my fist more than it hurt her!"
Why would it make any sense at all to cancel any animation just because the attack missed?
Sure, meta-gaming, Shadow Maul, if you miss, you miss, and you do no damage. However, in game, who is to say that you expect every single blow to miss after your first one misses? It's entirely reasonable for a character to believe "Oh, sure, that first one missed, but I'll get him with the next one." Well, unless Shadow Maul is a combo that uses the each hit to get the enemy into position for the next hit.