Blackfeather
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Also, hello @Uun! I've seen you talk about Controllers here and there on the forums (such as here), and it seems like you've a fairly wide breadth of knowledge about the archetypes in general. As such, I'd definitely be interested in hearing your thoughts about this addition to the Controller's inherent - do you see it as something useful/overtuned/undertuned? Would love to hear your thoughts on it!
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The technical deep dive seems to have some information on the file structure - perhaps just link to that for people?
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Shouldn't forget to ping @Tater Todd either - hello there! From what I've seen of you on the forums, it looks like you've got a fair amount of experience under your belt with Dominators and the like. I wanted to design Overwhelming Overpower to help the Controller lock down stronger targets, but didn't want to step on the toes of the Dominator in the process. I'd love to hear your thoughts on whether or not those goals were achieved, given your experience with the archetype (and any feedback you might have about the proposal itself of course)!
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Going to ping @Erydanus about this proposed addition to the Controller's inherent - hello! I've noticed you had your fair share of experience with this archetype, so I'd definitely be interested in hearing your views on this suggestion (apologies in advance for the length and tangents in this thread if you do decide to do so!). Additionally, I noticed your post about Containment/Overpower a little while back; it was certainly interesting! Any critiques/views about Overwhelming Overpower? Is it something you'd be interested in seeing? Would love to hear your stance on this!
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On 10/12/2020 at 12:45 PM, Solarverse said:
Wow....I had to do some research before responding to this, but you are absolutely correct. So, Domination...the most powerful inherent in game by far. It grants status protection, it grants a full bar of endurance, it grants DOUBLE the mag for CC's AND adds 50% to their duration. And what did Defenders get? Ha! That is just mind blowing. 😞
They certainly do get a lot of mileage out of their inherent...though out of curiosity, how would you change the inherent that Defenders currently have? The Support powersets are quite varied, which is very nice, but it does mean that finding something that provides a benefit across each of them in some way can be a little tough.
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10 hours ago, MsSmart said:
At this time, controllers for their name sake are totally inferior to Dominators. If you try to do your job, and cast an aoe, all you do is draw 100% agroe, especially since must melee do not bother with Taunt (especially now since the great taunt nurf and even with 4 slots it's pretty much mediocre), results with all the Status-Effect users (almost all mobs) spamming them on the controller, who oh by the way, has "Zero" protection from it (resistance is worthless, so at best you are in lala land for half the time, way too much time to get killed while totally helpless). So possibly the controller locks down a minion, but the bunches of LT and Bosses they laugh at you, you won't live long enough to take the 2 or 3 or more attempts to lock them down. When you get to he sadistically status effect resistances of EBs and AVs, why bother trying to "control" them, you might as well use harsh language.
While Dominators are indeed the better choice for strong, consistent lockdown, especially if they manage to get their Inherent permanently up, I do think it's important to clarify a few things. Most status effects in the control powersets have a magnitude of 3 - this allows the Controller to lock down both Minions and Lieutenants with a single use of one of their powers due to the protection levels that these enemies have. It's only Boss ranking enemies that generally require a second application to make them stick.
Another thing that's important to note: if you're teaming with more durable characters, it's generally good practice to let them take the first hits. Not only does this help reduce the amount of enemy attention gained against more fragile players, but it also helps to group enemies together, perfect for area-of-effect powers such as one's control powers.
10 hours ago, MsSmart said:If you are going to make the controllers useful, they need a lot of real love and not cosmetic.
1) They are supposed to be master of the Status-Effect attack, how come they can't defend from it? It strikes me they are like a dragon who can breath fire, but can't take fire at all, so utterly dumb. The first Controller improvement is that they get Status Protection that is 4 points better than tankers, they actually need the protection more so than tankers, that is 16 points.
Frankly, I'm not sold on this reasoning. A Blaster is an offensive juggernaut, and can strike down swathes of enemies with their massive arsenal of firepower. That isn't justification enough to say that they should be resistant to large amounts of damage, just because they're good at dealing it. Instead, they're expected to use their offensive powers to actively mitigate threats in front of them - defeat enemies before they defeat them. Alternately, teaming with more durable characters does wonders for them. Similarly, the Controller has tools in their arsenal to pre-emptively mitigate enemies as well: lock them down before it happens to them.
10 hours ago, MsSmart said:2) Their status effect powers have too low mag to be effective, and the ones at 3 has such terribly long recharge times, they themselves are practically useless. Two things needed, 1) double the mag level effect potency of their Status Effect powers, that may make a dent and make them practical (while do not increase mob's status effect protections), 2) give a 5% chance their status effect powers ignore the mob's status effect protection regardless of their quality (minion, lt, boos, eve, av, monster). The same 5% they get to hit us despite our very high defenses rationale...
So I am using the authors' concept to an extent, but just making it a bit easier to do, and practical.
With regards to many controllers using it, when MOBs are attacking me, each and every one gets the 5% arbitrary chance of getting a hit, there is no change to the rule because 20 mobs are shooting at me...
All status effect inducing powers that a Controller has are of magnitude 3 or higher (such as Mesmerize, which has a magnitude of 3.5). As said before, this is sufficient to lock down enemies of rank Lieutenant and below, with another application sufficient to lock down Bosses.
A Dominator with perma-Domination has consistent Mag 6 status effect inducing powers - this takes work and a decent grasp of the IO set system to achieve, and allows the Dominator to instantly lock down even Bosses. As such, providing magnitude 6 controls for Controllers out of the box is frankly far too potent, so it's not something that I can get behind.
Instantly allowing status effects to work, regardless of rank or protection levels is personally much stronger than my proposal intended to be. What about enemies that aren't supposed to be locked down, such as a Web-infused Lord Recluse? @Mystic_Cross has previously expressed their concern about the volatile power that my proposal might potentially have, and it's certainly something that I've been thinking about - this proposal sounds like said it'd exacerbate said concerns.
Additionally: the aggro cap for a single character is 17 enemies. It's impossible for a single character to attract the attention of more enemies than this cap.
While I do appreciate your desire to improve Controllers, and am glad that you've found merit in the suggestion that I've put forth, your proposals for improvements ought to stem from a solid foundation of the archetype's current capabilities, along with sound justifications for why they ought to be changed.
(Also, I do think @FoulVileTerror may have some thoughts on this, especially considering that the use of multiple Controllers with a change to their inherent like this was one of their initial concerns in the first place with my proposal.)
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Oh, and should probably ping @oedipus_tex about the above post as another response to the one you made a little while back about Archvillain fights - I feel like I didn't quite do an adequate job the first time around, so this is a bit of a do-over! 😅
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12 minutes ago, skoryy said:
The problem is considering a lvl 35-50 TF as max level content to begin with. If your mobs base difficulty is level 35, incarnated 50s are going to blow through them even if level shifted. They're not exactly endgame Arachnos or Malta.
Also, I'll add that 'tanks wading through everything' is a function of basic game design where most of the load bearing is done by defense caps and easily attainable layered defenses. Yet in all the talk about game difficulty, I don't recall anyone ever mentioning lowering defense and resist caps. 🤔
Any thoughts on @oedipus_tex's thread brought up a little while back here?
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On 10/11/2020 at 11:24 PM, Solarverse said:
Does Domination double the affect though? For example, a Dom's Single Target Hold is Mag 3, however, I believe when activating Domination, it simply brings it to a Mag 4 hold and then increases the duration by 66.6%. I'm not saying that is any better, but I just wanted to clarify that it does not double the Magnitude of the Hold power or the duration. However, increasing the Magnitude of the power by a factor of one is the reason you can hold a boss with a single application of a Hold Power instead of having to cast a hold twice, because you need a higher Mag than 3 to hold a boss. Same with locking down Wolves which has I think a Mag 7 resist to Immobilize (I could be wrong with the wolves resistance factor, but not by much) since it takes my Controller 3 attempts to lock them down before I actually get passed their resist to Immob.
Having said that, the only issue I have with this is that until a day comes where AV's and GM's become more difficult, I don't believe making AV and GM fights easier by allowing a Controller more power to hold them is the answer. AV's and GM's already go down so fast with the exception of Reichsman and Lord Recluse of course. If the Devs ever buff the AV's and GM's though....I would be all for this idea.Hey there! I see @Mystic_Cross has already answered this, but yes, Domination does indeed double the magnitude of status effect inducing powers, along with a host of other things. It's definitely quite the neat inherent ability!
As for the second point: I kind of see AVs/GMs (outside of things such as the purposefully overpowered Hamidon/Lord Recluse) as less of a "monumental effort to be conquered" and more of a "capstone enemy flourish", kind of like Big Bads in D&D. True, they may have some powerful abilities and the like, but with enough firepower, even the strongest singular enemy can be brought to their knees quite easily.
As such, most of the challenge from such Big Bads generally comes from the fact that they aren't alone, so said firepower can't be concentrated on them. A nice example of this that I like citing is Penelope Yin's task force - the ambushes involved there are a far larger danger than Clamour herself. For the Controller, especially on a team, they can't just content themselves with attempting to plug away at the Big Bad: there's other enemies to deal with that their powers are more effective against.
Overwhelming Overpower is basically designed to give Controllers the ability to lock down AVs/GMs instead of having their primary powerset essentially invalidated against them (cycling Purple Triangles of "alright, I suppose I'll let you do this to me" notwithstanding). I see that as kind of jarring, given that there isn't really any other category of powers rendered ineffective to that level. Debuffs work, but are lessened, similar to powers that deal damage. And of course, buffs work just fine.
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1 hour ago, oedipus_tex said:
How do you challenge players with very high Defense for example? You raise the base ToHit of enemies like was done in iTrials. I'd like to do everything to avoid that. (That higher ToHit base is also why I think Destiny is okay in iTrials).
Obviously while they're two fairly different games, I do like the idea of Bounded Accuracy in D&D 5e. Does serve as an interesting contrast in how one might end up scaling one's power level by level, at the very least. A swarm of enemies, even lower level ones, can still be a sizable threat for even higher level characters - AC does not increase very much, along with saving throws - theoretically at least. Of course, said characters have plenty more ways to deal with them as well in turn, due to their higher level.
I do believe you made a post on this sort of thing a little while back here to deal with this sort of high amounts of defence. It's certainly an interesting concept!
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22 hours ago, CaptainLupis said:
I'll take a look at that sleep thread. As far as the others the only issue I have with them is the binary nature, they either work completely, or no effect. Overwhelming Overpower just continues that theme. If they aren't going to address the binary nature of mez then I have no problem with it as an option for helping out a bit in endgame scenarios, it's just I am hoping for something a bit more radical to beimplemented instead. But I suspect I am probably in the minority there.
Thanks for the response, and hope you find some ideas of interest in it! And that's definitely pretty interesting - while I did address the way status effects work to some degree in the original post, I'm not entirely certain that it's an issue to the extent that they need an entire do-over. At the very least, it's not something I can personally conceive of without factoring in the potential work and side effects it might result in depending on its implementation.
There's actually been quite a few posts on addressing the status effect system itself in this thread, such as from @ABlueThingy here, and @FoulVileTerror here. @skoryy also mentioned something about break bars and the like over here. Perhaps some of their thoughts might be of interest to you?
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11 hours ago, CaptainLupis said:
Yes, sleeps can be useful where there are multiple AVs that you want to take on one at a time, but that is rare. When you are up against a single AV using sleeps against them is pretty much a waste of end. Which is why I'm hoping that, if they do implement any changes to control, it isn't the old binary mezzed or not, to make things like sleeps useful even in those kinds of encounters.
We all know how damn annoying it was back on live where all toggles dropped when you were mezzed, even ones that had such a short duration you often didn't even notice it had happened. If we could do something like that against AVs powers (although probably not all at once) I think it would be somewhat on the right track to making mez useful against them.
Perhaps this might interest you? It sounds like there's some potential changes being mulled around!
Similarly, did anything in my other thread pique your interest about improving the Sleep status effect?
That being said, outside of the Sleep status effect, what other qualms do you have about the others, out of curiosity? Stuns/Holds/Confuses/Fears all seem quite potent in their own right to varying degrees. I figure that for Controllers, being able to use them against AV/GMs via Overwhelming Overpower would be plenty enough to give them some utility there, even if they can't be used to perma-lock them down.
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On 10/9/2020 at 5:31 AM, Darkneblade said:
All Fear powers already has to hit debuff though. So I'm not sure what is feasible approach other than giving defence debuff.
Actually, I think Mind Control's Terrify is an exception in that regard - compare it to Illusion Control's Spectral Terror or Darkness Control's Fearsome Stare.
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15 hours ago, CaptainLupis said:
Funny you should mention sleeps, they are quite possibly the most useless powers in the game vs AVs and GMs. Even if you could stack enough mag to affect them any damage, which let's face it is kind of needed in a fight against them, will wake them up. Something else I was considering, but it doesn't really help lone controllers, would be if when the purple triangles are up they have a mag protection value that any mez power stacks up against, so if you have a team with 1 char that does mainly holds, another mainly stuns and a third sleeps they actually work together to overwhelm the mag protection, rather than having to try and do it separately for each mez type. They might need to up the mez resistance in the purple triangles to keep the mez time low, or something of that ilk, to make mez happen more often, but for short durations at a time?
Oddly enough, I see Sleeps vs. Archvillains as one of the few places where they are useful due to their lack of resistance to them - I imagine @oedipus_tex can attest to that against things such as the Ms. Liberty Task Force and whatnot. Coincidentally, I've also created a thread on improving the utility of the Sleep status effect, with a fair amount of different ideas and discussion along with it.
And yeah, Overwhelming Overpower was designed with one or two Controllers on the team in mind. There's this tipping point with status effects against stronger enemies, where if you have enough of them, you can basically perma-lock enemies down, but then there's this huge gap in between, you know? Overwhelming Overpower was meant to breach that gap, providing the Controller the ability to lock down stronger opponents, but only some of the time, as a way of bridging that binary to some degree.
While I'm not sure how a global magnitude stacking might be implemented, I did think up something pretty similar! Basically, one addition to this proposal was a way to increase the likelihood of the Overpower mechanic to trigger (it's currently a flat 20%), via stacking different status effects, thus raising the chance, even if they don't actually affect an enemy due to their protection:
Quote+Chance to Overpower
Another idea that's come to mind is letting the actual chance for the Overpower effect occur more frequently depending on a stacking bonus, similar to how Stalkers can build higher chances for critical hits. Potential ideas for 'stacks' (of let's say 5%) could be:
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Stacking percentage based on how many status effects on an enemy are applied (even if they aren't affecting them)
- E.g. Controller attempts to Hold + Sleep + Confuse an AV, chance to Overpower is now 20% + (5% + 5% + 5%) = 35% chance
- Stacking percentage based on how many recent control powers have been used (time pending)
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Stacking percentage based on previous controls that weren't an Overpower (increase chance if it hasn't happened lately)
- E.g. Controller's previous two controls were regular ones, chance to Overpower is now 20% + (5% + 5%) = 30% chance
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Increased chance based on amount of magnitude left until it exceeds protection
- (Current Magnitude Inflicted / Enemy Magnitude Protection) * 100 = additional chance to Overpower
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E.g. Controller Holds AV for Mag 3, resulting in a 26% chance to Overpower
- (3 / 50) * 100 = 6% additional chance
There's definitely a lot of routes to go about this!
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Stacking percentage based on how many status effects on an enemy are applied (even if they aren't affecting them)
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10 hours ago, CaptainLupis said:
I'd rather it doesn't do something that is already done by other powers/secondary effects. I think it needs something new and unique, although I understand that would probably be a lot more work than just adding in another secondary effect.
I try to visualise it like in comics/cartoons where the big bad gets their hand with the weapon encased in ice/web/whatever, so they are essentially partially controlled, in that they can still act, just not in the way they originally intended. I think we need to get away from the binary control of completely held/feared/stunned or nothing. But I realise I may well be alone in that.
Coincidentally, I actually envisioned Overwhelming Overpower as a logical extension of the magnitude system, with a character struggling to use their powers against a stronger foe: a battle of the wills of sorts (e.g. Infinity War's Titan fight where Mantis manages to put Thanos to sleep...the fact that AVs are vulnerable to said status effect notwithstanding), repeatedly attempting to assert their control over the enemy until they manage to give it their all.
I wanted to try to aim for those moments of power with this mechanic, to be able to lock down stronger foes, at least for a little while - the Plant Controller finally being able to draw up enough vines to bind the Big Bad, or the Electric Controller tapping deep into their reserves to send an overwhelming surge of energy through their target, and so on.
I like status effects due to how potent they potentially can be; they feel powerful in their own right, and more impactful than just debuffs and so on. So I wanted to try and keep to that spirit, while also ensuring that they couldn't be used to permanently tie down stronger opponents...hence the whole chance based nature of Overwhelming Overpower.
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While I wouldn't be interested in a totally random archetype, having a 'Random' button for both archetype selection, and primary/secondary selection might be fun.
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9 hours ago, Ultimo said:
My thought was that foes who are immune to controls should suffer a big debuff to their offense... either a big tohit penalty or damage debuff. That way, controllers would still be getting some defensive effect from their controls.
I believe something along those lines was mentioned a little while back - any thoughts on this implementation?
On 9/16/2020 at 6:59 AM, MTeague said:Maybe the same way Immobs can apply a -Movement debuff against things that are too strong to be Immob'd, some kind of -Recharge against things that have Hold/Stun/Confuse/Fear applied, but the mez protection is too strong for the control to "Stick". The -Recharge reflecting a "partial" Hold, where the foe can still attack, but sluggishly? or in the case of Confuse/Fear has to spend extra time mentally focusing themselves before they attack?
EDIT: and no application of the -Recharge if the control takes full effect. If it really IS held, then the hold is enough.
Admittedly, I do kind of see the application of additional debuffs along with the actual status effect of a power to be secondary in purpose to the effect going off (I've talked about this here and here). I figure that the Controller already has their Support secondary to provide any buffs/debuffs they so desire, along with any status effects their primary might already supply.
Hence the route I went with this suggestion in the first place: providing a means to lock down AVs/GMs, but not all the time, attempting to balance the whole binary nature of status effects by applying an element of chance to them.
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17 hours ago, Darkneblade said:
Hmm if AV's do not have purple triangles it should be fine. But they have, so I'm changing up a little.
Holded the enemy standard 10 seconds
Damage = chance to reduce duration of hold by %X. Chance based on current HP. So lower the HP higher chance of reducing duration.
If stacked mag exist. (6 mag in that case. It reset current duration on first hold. But enemy gains resistance to hold for X seconds. So you potentially lose duration no matter damage.)
Do keep in mind that there are other mez types so they reduce duration separately.
So sleep and fear mez actually be useful for once since they will not broken anymore. Only duration.
Also powerboost could actually help you in that case. So you can slot for duration rather than damage.
If enemy is afflicted by too much mez. Enemy debuff resistance drops and potentially their resistance to damage as well? Temporarily of course.
Otherwise since purple triangles exist current system is fine with overwhelming overpower.While I'm on the fence about such a system being implemented globally, having that "break meter" would be pretty neat for some Sleep status effect powers, such as Salt Crystals and Flash Freeze! I talked about such changes to the Sleep status effect in an old thread of mine - while I wouldn't want to see this applied to every Sleep power, for the ones that'd make thematic sense for it to take a while to wake up from damage (e.g. trapped in fragile ice or salt), it'd be quite neat.
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8 hours ago, BitCook said:
What annoys me to some degree is that there is little difference in whether a Tank collects aggro and takes all the damage, preventing it with insane defense and resists, or a controller turns them into a statue.
The only mechanical difference is that if the Tank doesn't have enough aggro them someone can peel that off. Otherwise they are mechanically the same. Damage is prevented and people move on.
Why one is considered good for the game and the other bad is beyond me. Probably because you can break aggro... Which leads us back to needing non binary holds. Anyway, just a grouse about the whole situation.
On the one hand, I do see where you're coming from - a durable character can do a lot to mitigate a fight's difficulty by drawing attention away from more fragile characters. On the other, it does sound like that's something that comes down to game balance.
I'm sure the assumption here is that the Tanker can be overwhelmed with sufficient force, and can't draw that many enemies towards them. As such, other team members need to make sure that they're still not being attacked due to the aggro cap and so on - that could come in the form of damage or status effects.
Additionally, any thoughts on @Sovera's stance on this whole matter of Controllers as a whole from the previous page? It sounds like it'd be right up your alley.
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38 minutes ago, Ultimo said:
Controls in Champions Online are pretty well nonexistent. Beyond the fact that most of the time there's SOMEONE who has built a character capable of so much DPS that every thing is dead in less than 3 seconds, any damage done to an enemy reduces the amount of time they spend controlled. So, if you put an enemy into a hold of some sort, and then someone damages them, they will usually be freed from the hold.
Of course, most AVs are basically immune to holds, both here and there. The big difference is that here, our holds still do damage.
The real issue for me is that for Controllers and Dominators, they have pretty well no defense if they can't control the enemy. Fighting bosses and above, you're basically left defenseless.
First off, thanks for your perspective, Ultimo!
Hmm...your thoughts on this, @Darkneblade? It does sound like the proposal you put forth might be a bit limiting in that case, especially on teams.
And it's true - part of a Controller's defences come from their ability to lock down the battlefield, similar to how a Blaster's defence comes from their offence. Of course, some of them do have support powers that can help them in that regard. I guess the main issue that comes up is that while the latter can still do their thing as usual against tougher opponents, the Controller can't really do that, outside of the opportunities where they're "allowed" (i.e. Purple Triangles).
That's what Overwhelming Overpower's attempting to do - provide them with the ability to use their primary against said tougher targets.
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Additionally, I think I should ping @blazingcoconut - hello there! I saw your post about Controllers a little while back. There was mention about AVs being difficult to lock down with how things are in it: my proposal attempts to rectify that somewhat. Would love to hear your thoughts on it, along with any critiques you might have! Does it go too far? Too little? Looking forward to any responses you might have! 😄
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2 hours ago, Coyote said:
Exactly. Who needs control or defensive debuffs when teams steamroll almost all content? But the solutions don't exist or are impractical or are too hard.
I'm somewhat reminded of the posts on Warframe's forums from time to time such as this one, and this one (or this Reddit one). Seems to mirror a lot of the different points brought up here, honestly (can pretty much CTRL+F "power fantasy" to see what I mean).
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20 minutes ago, Darkneblade said:
Maybe for whole city of statues concern we can decrease AV's mez duration while they get damaged?
Like you held enemy for 3 mag held status for 20 seconds.
Blaster A used snipe. There is %X chance to reduce that duration.
With full team since lot of damage is going to that particular AV your mez becomes less duration but potentially with overwhelming overpower idea you can hold them more but with less duration.@Ultimo, I noticed you talking about Champions Online a little while back - it sounds like you've some experience in that regard. Given your knowledge about the game, and how this proposal sounds like something quite similar to how control works there, might you have any thoughts on how that might look when applied on AVs/GMs? Would definitely be interested in hearing about it (or sending other people in the know this way)!
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7 minutes ago, Darkneblade said:
Maybe for whole city of statues concern we can decrease AV's mez duration while they get damaged?
Like you held enemy for 3 mag held status for 20 seconds.
Blaster A used snipe. There is %X chance to reduce that duration.
With full team since lot of damage is going to that particular AV your mez becomes less duration but potentially with overwhelming overpower idea you can hold them more but with less duration.I think Champions Online had some sort of mechanic along those lines? Can't say one way or another about how that'd work out in practice, never played that game before.
QuoteThere are several types of powers that can disable a character temporarily in Champions Online. Most operate on a system of a "health" and a duration. As damage is dealt to the hold (by various means based on the hold type), its health is reduced, and when it reaches zero, the hold is broken. Most holds will then apply a stacking Hold Resist.
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Overwhelming Overpower: A Controller Inherent Buff - Control AVs and GMs!
in Suggestions & Feedback
Posted
Oh! My apologies - let me clarify a little bit. The Controller inherent is currently composed of two things: Containment and Overpower. My thread looks at Overpower, and tries to scale it up to higher magnitudes, giving the Controller a small chance to lock down tougher targets (hence Overwhelming Overpower).
So essentially, I wanted to get your view on how powerful this might be - I didn't want this inherent to overshadow what Dominators are currently capable of (consistent, powerful controls capable of locking down AVs), since these two archetypes are the most control heavy, and it looks like you've got your fair share of experience on the latter. 😅