Blackfeather

@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)!

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.

Hey there! Thanks for writing up a response - don't you worry about that, I knew about your stance on crowd control and the like already, and I thought it'd be an interesting view to bring to the table. While I think Controllers are generally in a decent spot myself, and just think it'd be nice to be able to actually affect AVs/GMs, I can understand some of these qualms. It sounds like they boil down to something along the lines of "enemies are defeated too quickly for crowd control to matter", which I've heard from another user in this thread. I do wonder about your thoughts on @BitCook's post, since they seem to have a similar stance on it: Similarly, I'd love to hear your thoughts on @Sovera's stance about the more systemic changes that I have trouble visualising? Do you think those would be helpful for Controllers? Would love to hear your thoughts on it, especially since you seem a bit more versed in the whole game balance thing than I am. 😄

Coincidentally, I mentioned something about that in the original post! Any of them tickle your fancy? I think there was also a mention of a "wearing down magnitude resistance" a little while back from @FoulVileTerror in this post. Is that close to what you're describing?

I should probably ping @Sovera about this proposal too - I've seen you around the forums talking about the role of a Controller at the higher levels. While that's definitely worth an entire discussion in of itself, in the meantime, I'd love to hear your thoughts/critiques on this! I think being able to lock down stronger targets would do a fair amount for the archetype.

Well, that's the thing. We've already talked about how the archetypes ended up gameplay wise - nobody's refuting that. What we're talking about was how they were originally envisioned, even if they didn't work out that way.

Sure, some archetypes may play more similarly to each other than others. But I don't really see how that detracts from the whole "how things were originally envisioned" vs. "how it actually turned out" thing. "Villainous counterpart" != "plays similarly to the other", which seems to be the line of reasoning that you're putting forth. I think there's been a bit of a misunderstanding here? @Bill Z Bubba and I have been talking about the original design intent of the Redside archetypes, and how each one works as a thematic villainous/selfish mirror of the Blueside ones, but have both acknowledged that in practice, the villainous archetypes end up playing in different ways.

As said previously: look at them less from a mechanical perspective, and more from an overarching villainous/heroic counterpart perspective. Theme wise, it checks out, even if in practice it doesn't work that way.

As said previously, in practice, it doesn't quite work out that way, but the thematic intent behind the archetypes is pretty clear when seen from a broader perspective. Designed in one way, used another: it happens. Masterminds were originally envisioned as the type of character that stayed back and lets their minions do the dirty work for them - no leaping into the fray for them; what are they, Tankers, willing to get hurt for the sake of others? Brutes are basically Scrappers up to eleven - charge into a fight, and even better, get angrier/stronger as time goes on for doing that. I see Stalkers as inverse Blasters: instead of taking down the small fry first and then attacking the tougher targets, you delete the tougher targets first, and then clean up. Stealth and finesse as compared to explosive power. Controllers not only lock down the battlefield, but help their team members in the process - a Dominator has no need for that, and thus supplements their controls with some offence. And of course, Defenders/Corruptors are fairly clear cut.

I'm pretty sure the intent was more something like: Tanker <take hits : get others to take hits> Mastermind Scrapper <filling similar niches, but more aggressively> Brute Blaster <all over the place damage : focused, tactical damage> Stalker Controller <lock down group, support : lock down group, attack> Dominator Defender <support, deal damage : deal damage, support> Corruptor Of course, in practice, I'm not so sure it worked out that way. But at least theme wise, I can see it.

While I'm not sure about how things work behind the scenes, an alteration to the Overwhelming Overpower table could get things pretty close to this, I think: Additional Magnitude Chance per Overpower Chance per Power Usage Floating Text +1 = affect a Boss 50% 10% = 10 in 100 uses Overpower +4 = affect an Elite Boss 25% 5% = 5 in 100 uses Overpower! +25 = two-shot an Archvillain 20% 4% = 4 in 100 uses Overpower!! +54 = affect an Archvillain 5% 1% = 1 in 100 uses Overpower!!! That could get the Controller halfway there, and in very rare instances, one-shot an AV. GMs aren't outright affected, but then again, they're meant to be handled in groups anyway, so it's no big deal. It also provides the Controller with the potential to stack enough magnitude to lock down an AV with a few lesser Overpowers on their side too, depending on how the cards end up falling.

Ah, let me clarify what I meant by that. Basically, being able to disable the powers of AVs/GMs sounds like either something that's: Very useful - a must have depending on the kinds of powers it disables Not useful - essentially little to no impact on a fight Depending on how that sort of thing is implemented, it sounds like it'd be hard to strike the balance between those two things to reach "nice to have territory" in other words. As for playing in City of Statues: what do you think of the chances that are currently presented in the links I provided previously? I definitely didn't want AVs/GMs to be perma-held with this current system: my main focus was to let Controllers use their primaries against them to some effect. In other words, partially controlling them (I figure that in groups, they can already perma-lock them anyhow).

Not actually proposing this, but more wondering why AoE Holds have an accuracy penalty and nuke powers don't: Takes a long time to recharge Designed to clear out smaller enemies Better pray if you end up missing They're basically the same thing.

Something I do find odd: why are nukes so much more accurate compared to AoE Holds? They serve basically the same purpose: clear out trash mobs. And on a different tangent...I wonder how bad nukes would end up being if they had the same accuracy penalty as AoE Holds currently do. 😈

I've previously talked about the likelihood of Overwhelming Overpower landing over here in the post I made to @Noyjitat here. The important part is as follows: What do you think of those numbers provided? Are they too low? Too high? Would be glad to hear your thoughts on them! And that's quite alright - any feedback is quite welcome, even from those not all that familiar with Controllers or Dominators! This is definitely an interesting thought - that being said, I do have some questions about that kind of mechanic in practice: By locking this to specific archetypes, could this potentially cause Controllers/Dominators to be seen as 'necessary' to bring in specific fights? I enjoy how CoH allows for any team composition to work on the fly It feels like an either/or thing, with disabling certain powers being either too powerful (stopping a team wipe, say), or without much impact (not potent enough to matter), you know? I wanted to boost the level of control that Controllers have up to the level of Dominators with the introduction of Overwhelming Overpower, but with a different spin: capable of locking down powerful enemies, but less reliably so.

Apologies for the late response - had some things that needed doing on my end! Just breaking this down a little, since there's a few things here, I think: I view the current Overpower mechanic as working as intended against regular mobs - bosses can occasionally be locked down in the first hit, but not reliably so As such, I scale this mechanic upwards to the point of affecting AVs/GMs, but at lower chances The likelihood of Overwhelming Overpower working against AVs/GMs is higher due to the fact that they have a high enough health pool/resistance to not be mowed down in the first place - that's intentional, and is meant to be the equivalent of a Dominator stacking their more powerful controls to lock them down over time I brought up a nice comparison equation over in this post, take a look to see how they both stack up! I also talked about the likelihood of an Overwhelming Overpower occurring in 50 seconds here - the duration of the Purple Triangles up phase If you'd like, I'd be quite happy to try and run the numbers for any specific scenarios about the likelihood of an Overwhelming Overpower triggering - currently, I'm of the view that it currently strikes a nice middle ground I assume you're referring to the +Chance to Overpower suggestion in your last part? I haven't yet fleshed out how it'd exactly workmyself: that was more in response to users talking about this mechanic's lack of reliability To clarify, the chance table remains the same, only the likelihood of an Overpower goes up (i.e. the 20% chance of it increasing) Additionally, what did you think about the suggestion about having a Smoother Overpower Magnitude Curve? Depending on its implementation, perhaps this might address your qualms about the level of variability involved with its current implementation? Personally speaking, perma-Dominators deserve the level of power that they have, and I see them as the be-all-and-end-all of "powerful, consistent lockdown", so I wanted the Controller to strike the balance between non-perma and perma-Dominators myself. I didn't want Controllers to overshadow them, which is something that I say here in my response to @Noyjitat. They do, after all, both have control powers as their primary. That being said, I also wanted to make sure that the Controller was rewarded in some way for slotting up their control powers - that's where the chance based mechanics of Overwhelming Overpower come in: By slotting them up for recharge, they get more rolls of the dice = more chances that Overwhelming Overpower activates By slotting them for duration, their rolls may be potentially safer (I can bring up the odds of one happening again while an AV is controlled on request!) Alternately, it could interact in some way with the +Chance to Overpower suggestion, such as building chance with magnitude stacks Damage is all well and good, but I don't really see it as that much of a priority, especially for Controllers, which are more team focused (which may or may not include upping damage in different ways). Whether that balance is struck, well...that's what this discussion is about! 😄 Whoops - I made a bit of a math gaffe here, apologies. Assuming 5 control powers, with one hit of Overpower, a Controller would have a total magnitude of 16 altogether (3 x 4 + 4 = 12 + 4 = 16). A perma-Dominator with 5 control powers has a magnitude of 30 (6 x 5). If we wanted to directly scale that, any power with Overpower would then have a magnitude of 18 (30 - 12). Personally, this direct scaling isn't something I'm the biggest fan of: Overwhelming Overpower was created directly in response to Controllers finding their primary kind of shafted in AV/GM fights - I wanted to keep their controls potent, but unreliable, especially as the sole status-effect inflictor of the team (with the assumption that multiple sources of lockdown = the big bad is locked down anyway and for longer periods regardless of this mechanic). Funnily enough, I view the increasing the magnitude of controls to 4 for Controllers as too powerful! Dominators are only able to reliably one-shot bosses due to the work they put into keeping their mechanic permanent - I wanted to keep the lack of reliability as something tied to the Controller's inherent: with how it currently functions. It does seem like we've got some different views on how powerful controls ought to be: I see perma-Dominators as the last word in consistent, powerful lockdown (to my knowledge, perma-Doms can indeed lock down AVs currently - I wanted to bring Controllers up to that level, but didn't want to take away with what other things the Dominator could do, such as consistently Hold bosses). Take a look through the links I posted - and feel free to ask about the reliability of Overwhelming Overpower in any scenarios that you'd like! I think I've gotten my head around calculating them now.

Or was this closer to what you were envisioning, @FoulVileTerror?

That does sound interesting (though I'm somewhat of the stance that Controllers provide support via their support secondary, with locking down enemies as their main priority) - could you elaborate further on this though? It sounds a little difficult to envision, but I'm seeing it as reducing an enemy's magnitude protection. Effectively, control powers kind of do that at the moment, since each use of a status effect builds up to break that down. I assume the difference here is that it'd apply to all status effects?

@CaptainLupis noticed you talking about control powers...perhaps this potential proposal might interest you? Would be glad to hear your thoughts on it!

Indeed - I use the Lockdown proc myself in some cases, such as my Illusionist's Flash. That being said, I generally avoid using the AoE Hold as an opener, and more as a panic button for when things are going south, preferring to use the rest of the Controller's arsenal in other situations (i.e. powers with more constant uptime). As a result, it's definitely quite optional in most of my builds. The short +2 magnitude helps a good amount to provide a moment's pause to think a little, retreat or push the advantage, etc. I believe Confuse powers also have a similar benefit in the Coercive Persuasion proc, even better than Lockdown in some ways, since it spreads confusion around in a group. Definitely fun with characters with an AoE confuse power such as Plant, Electric, or Mind Controllers.

I do like this post from Number Six about code changes: They've got a follow up post in the next page about this, but to paraphrase, while the difficulty of implementing something is certainly to be considered, it's just a single facet of discussion when it comes to proposals and so on. Which is all we can do as players, I suppose! 😄

Clamour's Freakshow ambush in Penelope Yin's task force can be quite the surprise for the unprepared.

Should probably ping @Wavicle about this post as well, given this comment. You might like this proposal! Or not, in which case, critiques are definitely welcome as well. 😄

Hey @Coyote - might have something up your alley, having looked at this post of yours. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this proposal of mine; while it focuses on Controllers, it also discusses the use of status effects against stronger enemies and so on. Any thoughts/feedback/critique on it would be much welcome!

I think @The Philotic Knight might like to have a word or two about this. 😏