Blackfeather
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Posts posted by Blackfeather
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13 hours ago, Darkneblade said:
To avoid whole City of Statues status maybe we can give AV's/GM's breakfree too. Nothing much just X seconds of 100 mez protection.
Like you hold enemy when it wears off they are immune to hold for X seconds
There will be timers on different status effect as well including knockback.
Though this is similar to purple triangles it is not. When they use breakfree AV's/GM's debuff resistance is temporarily drops. If you can stack different status effect all together.
Held = Drops their debuff resistance
Held/Stun = Drops further
Held/Stun/Terrorize = Drops even further
Held/Stun/Terrorize/Confuse = Drops even furtherer
Held/Stun/Terrorize/Confuse/Immobilize = Immobilize is useless so it is not drops. Same as Sleep.What do you think about this idea, @DougGraves? It sounds like this would be something you'd be more familiar with.
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10 hours ago, DougGraves said:
The idea is that holding a solo mob is too powerful. If they cannot do anything, they will just lose. Which is why controls generally do not work against AVs and GMs.
But the devs can decide on a specific effect that is okay to do to the boss and have the stacked controls cause that effect.
So it lets controls have an effect, but not the overpowering effect that they normally have.
Correct - status effects are potent, and it's why Overwhelming Overpower works the way it does. A group of Controllers will of course be able to lock down an AV with little to no trouble: exceeding the Mag 50 protection is fairly trivial in those situations. However, there is this critical cut-off point, where there aren't enough of them, and their status effects are essentially 'wasted'.
This is what is meant by the status effect system being binary - either Held or not Held. Either Stunned or not Stunned, and so on. Overwhelming Overpower intends to breach this gap: a single Controller now has the chance to lock down stronger opponents, even without enough magnitude available to stack up to that level. They can't match a Dominator's consistent sheer strength, but with this proposal, they can occasionally burst past it.
That being said, it does sound like your proposal mirrors similar ones brought up, such as by @FoulVileTerror and @skoryy - they mentioned ideas about a resolve meter, resulting in different effects given a certain threshold. Which does sound interesting!
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6 hours ago, DougGraves said:
It is not a wearing off of protection, because the effect when you get rid of the bar is not that the control works - although you could do that. Instead the effect differs depending upon the boss.
A boss might have damage resistance 50% unreducable, but when the bar is broken it goes away temporarily. Or they might regenerate while the bar is up but stop regenerating while the bar is down. Or they might have a damage aura while the bar is up, but it goes away while the bar is down.
So controllers do not hold bosses, the can debuff them with controls in a way that is specific to the boss. It has to be part of the design for each boss.
Admittedly, I'm not quite sure about what this proposal is meant to do, at least via the way that it's currently being described - aren't Controllers (and other archetypes for that matter) already able to debuff AVs/GMs? They're just fairly resisted.
The proposal at hand is meant to provide Controllers with the potential to lock down stronger enemies, but not 100% of the time. Currently a Controller on their own can't really breach the protection levels that AVs/GMs possess (outside of the Purple Triangles of course), and needs multiple other sources of controls to do so. It attempts to breach this gap somewhat - each Controller with Overwhelming Overpower also carries a chance to lock them down.
If you're proposing that enemies become more vulnerable to debuffs while they're controlled...hrm. While that certainly sounds potent, I do think that it'd be a little too potent - debuffs are already hefty force multipliers, and removing those resistances might make for trivial fights - the Purple Patch was designed to stop lower level characters from taking down much higher ones after all, and I do believe that part of this came from just how potent debuffs are against them when not reduced accordingly.
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6 hours ago, DougGraves said:
You say that controls are binary, but they aren't quite. Enemies can have resistance so that a control has no effect, but they can also reduce the duration of the effect. So like debuffs work but at a reduced percent, you could also have controls work but for a shorter duration.
First off (and I apologise for being nitpicky): terminology. There are two factors when looking at status effects. The first is Protection. That's the total amount of magnitude that a character or NPC can withstand before succumbing to a status effect. The second is Resistance to status effects, which causes them to wear off faster. With that out of the way...
I'm not really sure whether the statement "controls are binary" is really up to disagreement (*waves at @ABlueThingy for confirmation on this*). Yes, status effects can be resisted, which do affect the duration of them, along with the Purple Patch, which does the same. However, they still fall under 'working' or 'not working' - there isn't an in between like how some are suggesting.
14 hours ago, DougGraves said:A problem I see with controls now is that they are not universally
resistedprotected. Sleep works on many AV's. So you can use static field in electricity to put them to sleep on and off - not full control, but it still works. Whereas hold does nothing.Correct - to my knowledge, Archvillains and Giant Monsters have less protection against Immobilises and Sleeps than other status effects. Were you hoping for this lack of protection to be conferred to other status effects, or for them to also be protected against?
14 hours ago, DougGraves said:The best use of controls for bosses that I have seen is Guild Wars 2. They have a defiance bar. Bosses with a defiance bar get some effect while the defiance bar is up or some penalty while it is down. The defiance bar is reduced by controls - different amounts depending on the control and its duration, so immobilize would lower it slightly and hold would lower it more. And after the defiance bar is down, it comes back after a short time. You can win without taking down a bosses defiance bar but it helps a lot. And since every AT has controls of some sort they can all participate in it not just controllers and dominators. Those ATs would just be better at it.
Having a read through the description, it sounds a little bit like a global magnitude system - instead of each status effect contributing to break down a separate magnitude protection score, each one works to wear off a single point of protection, with the added caveat that magnitude can continuously build and not wear off over time. Would that be a correct summation?
Otherwise, it might be something like that Resolve meter that @FoulVileTerror mentioned, but I'm not sure.
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On 9/16/2020 at 5:08 AM, Vanden said:
This seems completely useless. A 1-in-125 chance of it happening on an AV? You can already hold an AV 1/3rd-1/4th of the time while the triangles are down, but this feature you could run an entire LRSF without experiencing it once.
Edit: And a 1-in-10 chance of it happening on a Boss, even though a regular Overpower already holds a boss? What's the point of that?
Oh! Apologies Vanden, I didn't see that edit of yours until now. Basically, to explain the table, the results are cumulative - currently, Overpower has a 1 in 5 chance of occurring with every use of a status effect power, in other words, a 20% chance of happening. So with Overwhelming Overpower, the chance for Overpower remains the same: 20%. However, the new system also has a chance of inflicting more than an additional +1 magnitude.
This is what the Chance per Overpower section is supposed to represent. So in this new system, 50% of the time, Overpower functions as it does before - with a +1 that holds down a boss. However, on other occasions, it may instead be a +4, or a +54, or even rarer, +100.
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! +54 = affect an Archvillain 20% 4% = 4 in 100 uses Overpower!! +100 = affect a Giant Monster 5% 1% = 1 in 100 uses Overpower!!! Hope this clears things up! If you have any further questions about the table, please let me know.
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I should probably ping @DougGraves about this suggestion as well - I noticed you talking about Controllers in this thread that you created, so I imagine you've got a fair amount of experience under your belt as well. My suggestion aims to enable even a single Controller to lock down stronger enemies, if not all the time. Any thoughts/opinions/critiques on Overwhelming Overpower? Would be glad to hear them!
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7 minutes ago, BitCook said:
I've been talking about this in the Game Balance thread with a number of others. (Here is a link that kind of sums what I feel)
I do think that's a huge problem in the game right now in terms of roles and usefulness.
However, this is not that topic. So on the issue of making controllers feel more like a controller. Yes, I like this idea. I think it bridges the gap that was created when Doms became a thing. Controllers don't get damage which is really the #1 control so their controls should be on par with dominators. Regardless of how hard/easy it is to achieve permadom, there is plenty of argument to say that Dominators are the superior controller. They should not be.
So while I think this proposal does a good job of bridging that gap. My thoughts on the usefulness of controls don't really matter when speaking to that aspect of the AT.Glad to hear the proposal itself sounds solid!
That being said, it sounds like it'd be a good idea to start a separate thread of your own about these potential issues, along with highlighting your personal feelings about them and so on. The General Discussion or Controller subforums might be a good place to put such a post.
An issue with the underlying system sounds like it's worth discussion about, along with any potential solutions and changes that might need to come about as a result of this. If it's indeed something about the game itself, I'm sure there'll be a good deal of people interested in talking about it!
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9 hours ago, BitCook said:
There is some truth there, but Dominators do not take that much effort to get to perma dom. A couple IO sets and Hasten and you are pretty much there. It's not like building in some global recharge is something that people don't want to do. Most toons get the most bang for their IOs in doing so.
As for the increased chance, again I like it better. Regardless of the control you are using at least you are building to something that will help you actually control something. I'm still of the opinion that significantly upping the chance for controllers to control is the right move. Dominators already get something that ALL endgame teams want. Damage. Controllers don't have that. Frankly, they should always have been the better controller between the pair, however, that was not to be.Admittedly, I'm not entirely sold on this - it does take effort to reach perma-Domination, and that effort isn't trivial (though one more versed with Dominators such as @oedipus_tex, feel free to chime in about this). Something else to consider is that not all Dominators will be building to make their inherent perma. As such, higher Overpower chances will likely reduce the relative value of Domination itself. It's why I'd prefer using building stacks vs. outright increasing those chances: at least this way, the Controller needs to slot their powers accordingly to make them work a bit more effectively, same as Dominators.
Additionally, while it's true that Dominators do provide a means of damage in their secondary on a team, Controllers are force multipliers in their own right, contributing to damage indirectly via buffs and debuffs, in many cases on levels exponentially higher than any one team member. A well aimed -Res debuff, Forge, or Fulcrum Shift does far more than a lone Dominator can.
I figure that given that they both have a primary with controls, they ought to be similarly proficient with them, but with enough differences between how they go about being better. Hence Overwhelming Overpower's more chance based nature compared to Domination's super mode.
19 hours ago, BitCook said:In that we disagree. Don't get me wrong. I love controllers. My fist character on live was I3-4 and was a controller and I had/have dozens of combinations at 50 both from old live and here. However, in this environment, and to some degree at the end of live, their purpose on a team has mostly vanished.
This isn't because the mechanics are bad. It's that they are no longer needed. Honestly, to most teams, a controller is dead weight even if they were able to one shot hold Bosses/EBs or to a lesser degree AVs. Toons are too survivable and fights are over too quick for controls to be relevant to the current version of Live. Sure, they're nice. Yes, you can occasionally carry a bad team, or have a moment where you just let loose with your arsenal to save the team from an ambush... but the sad thing is that those are memorable because they are no longer all that common. What I just described, most toons call an average day. We can remember those incidents where we felt like we contributed because most of the time... we don't.
Now mechanically, are they broken? Probably not. Will this change make them better, yes. Will it make them needed? No. Not because it isn't a good idea, but because the fundamental balance of the ATs and game has shifted to make them less needed.Hmm...if your definition of "fixing" Controllers is to make them "needed" per your previous post, then personally I don't think any change to them is really going to cut it. No archetype is really essential to playing the game, and I think it'd be a detriment to it if that were the case.
If instead your issue with the archetype is that "things die too quickly for status effects to be useful" then no matter how strong a Controller's status effects are, they won't really address the issue you have with them - a more holistic look at how the game works would be of better use: asking questions as to why that's the case, and figuring out those root causes. After that, it's a matter of discussing that with others to see if they feel similarly.
My main pet peeve with Controllers is that they can't really lock down stronger enemies on their own - in groups with them, it's a given, but the binary nature of status effects means that there's this very wide threshold of "works" and "doesn't work". And that's where Overwhelming Overpower comes in: to help breach that gap somewhat.
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20 minutes ago, FoulVileTerror said:
I hadn't actually mapped out what my idea for Resolve would be exactly in terms of numerical detail . . . but, yeah. If we go with the obvious and make it a "Bar" like Hit Points or Endurance, then naturally there would be a range from 0% to 100% (or vice-versa). I get the impression here that @Darkneblade is suggesting that the lower a target GM's Resolve is, comparatively by percent, the greater the odds of scoring an Overwhelming Overpower would be.
Basically, if I'm reading Darkne's proposal correctly, it would work like Scourge. The closer to defeat/Control Magnitude the target gets, the more accelerated/likely that defeat/Overwhelming Overpower becomes.
The overall concept does sound interesting - though I do wonder if it's possible to implement something similar using the current system in place. Maybe something like this?
(Current Magnitude Inflicted / Enemy Magnitude Protection) * 100 = additional chance to Overpower
So for instance, let's say that a Controller has inflicted a Mag 3 Hold against an Archvillain - plugging this into the formula would give us an additional 6% chance on top of the 20% chance that Overpower has of occurring ((3 / 50) * 100 = 6). Only slight problem might be against things such as GMs, which have higher levels of protection...but then again, they're also designed to be fought in groups, so it makes sense.
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41 minutes ago, Darkneblade said:
Resolve mechanic can work with OP I think. Say enemy have %100 resolve Chance of Overwhelming Overpower reduces to %5 (min)
%90 = %7.5
%80 = %10
%70 = %12.5
%60 = %15
%50 = %17.5
%40 = %20
%30 = %22.5
%20 = %25
%10 = %27.5
% 0 = %30
Admittably this is huge task for creating resolve mechanic that said I can't think anything better. Maybe have IO that increases chance for overwhelming overpower to appear as well. And math looks right.I'm not really familiar with resolve and whatnot - think you can chime in here about all this, @FoulVileTerror? Sounds like this'd be a bit more up your alley.
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On 9/23/2020 at 5:58 AM, SeraphimKensai said:
Right now from an AoE Hold perspective there's really no reason to roll a controller having a base 240 second recharge, whereas newer blaster secondaries have AoE holds in them have a 90 second base recharge for the same magnitude as a controller minus the overpower proc. Then blaster's damage scale is far superior to a controllers.
Admittedly, I never quite considered Controllers or Dominators as having issues with locking down groups of enemies - granted, it'd be nice to get the base recharge time of AoE Holds to go down to something like, say, 180 seconds, but it's not too much of an issue for me, given the vast array of tools in their arsenal. Additionally, I've heard rumours about balance passes for Blasters - I wouldn't be surprised if that recharge was upped for those AoE Hold powers, because honestly that's way too low.
On 9/23/2020 at 5:58 AM, SeraphimKensai said:As an AT inherent overpowe, as it is, is mediocre at best. If changing the Overpower mechanic is on the table I think controllers would be better served by a revamp such as:
"For every mezzed target the controller currently has, the controller receives a recharge reduction towards it's AoE holds/stuns/sleeps/etc" (perhaps 10% recharge redux for an AoE Mez active since they either in 90 seconds for AoE soft controls, 5% recharge redux for targets under a single target hold/Imob/confuse, and 2.5% for mobs under an AoE Imob?).
That way it rewards a controller for controlling with more frequent access to it's long recharging AoE powers. This would help change the dynamic between controllers and dominators while still sticking to the core cottage rule of the AT.
Hmm...I'll admit, having reduced recharge time on a Controller's powers does sound nice, but I'm not sure if it addresses the main issue that I personally have with the archetype: namely, the inability to lock down tougher targets like AVs/GMs on their own, causing half of their powerset to basically be irrelevant against them. Even if their powers recharged faster, it doesn't really make handling mobs any easier - I can do that just fine, in my experience. Overwhelming Overpower is intended to help resolve situations where an enemy's magnitude far exceeds a Controller's powers.
That being said, I do like that suggestion of building stacks by seeing how many enemies a Controller currently has locked down. Per my original post, I proposed a potential way of increasing the chance of an Overpower alongside the core proposal. An increase of 5% or 10% per enemy locked down might be interesting, though it sounds a little bit difficult to juggle in some scenarios - not all AVs/GMs are fought with a posse.
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21 hours ago, Darkneblade said:
I didn't do math but these should help controllers more I think
3 Mag mez
+ Chance to double mez already you have. So if you hit with 3+1 mag. it becomes 6+2 mag.
Similar to critical hit I think. It is still unreliable but it is better than what we have so far.
Also Containment damage bonus should include Pet's damage as well. With Fear and Confuse for added effect for obvious reasons.So to clarify, you'd propose Overpower to work the same way as before, but instead of just adding +1 to a status effect inducing power, it doubles it instead? That sounds like an always-on, somewhat unreliable version of Domination, admittedly. I'm not entirely sold - the main reason I went this route with Overwhelming Overpower was to allow Controllers to lock down larger targets, albeit at a less reliable pace than Dominators can.
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8 hours ago, BitCook said:
I think the frequency is a little low if this is the only fix that's put into place. It's really easy to make Perma Dom, and no one complains about them being too OP. Even with being able to one shot hold bosses, they are still considered relatively weak. So I think you could up them a little and still not really be any big deal for a majority of the player base. If you want to "fix" controllers with this, then it probably need to come up enough that it's something that you count on perhaps half or more of the time. I don't think that giving a +1 mag 60% or more of the time would be that unbalanced. Again, Dom's are already there 100% of the time and no one complains about them.
Did you take a look at the Potential Further Ideas section of the original post? There, I discussed a rough proposal about ways to increase the Controller's chance to Overpower. I'll copy it over now:
Spoiler+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
I'd be interested in getting your opinion on this mechanic, along with any critiques/suggestions you might have about it!
Another thing that's also important to keep in mind is that Dominators don't have perma-Domination out of the box. It takes a good amount of work and levels to get them there, with lots of recharge bonuses, and sometimes sacrifice in other aspects. I imagine @oedipus_tex would agree with this, given their love of Dominators.
By upping the chance to Overpower out of the box, I think that might potentially step on the Dominator's toes. My intention with keeping the chance to Overpower the same as before was to help differentiate the archetypes to some degree. Dominators eventually build up to be more powerful and reliable, while Controllers are more variable.
Also something to keep in mind is that by keeping the chance to Overpower the same, the Controller has another direct incentive to actually slot their status effect powers somewhat: they want to make their Overwhelming Overpower last, and to help encourage it to happen more often, they can slot the power for more recharge, thus 'rolling the dice' more often.
The stance that I'm coming from with the introduction of this mechanic is that I don't really think Controllers are 'broken' in the first place - they're generally an enjoyable archetype for me to play, but it'd be nice if they could actually do something with their control powers while facing stronger enemies.
8 hours ago, BitCook said:The controller, like other classes that rely on debuff has a resisted debuff. So the values that you would rely on get drastically reduced. There are a lot of threads about this. I would propose that allow Controllers and Doms to have an additional UNRESISTED debuff based on the control that was resisted.
So yes, say you are hitting an AV with a hold. If the secondary effect is -rchg, make it decent, say -30% and both unresistable and unstackable. So if two people have failed holds, you are still at -30%, just the duration extends. The AV is quasi held, and there is damage mitigation to the team that is noticeable.
I agree that the control is the main draw. However, when it is binary with long durations, you don't have much options against hard targets other than make them totally trivial, or make the controller totally trivial. There are no other powers in the game that are essentially ignored in content. Your damage can be reduced, but you still do damage if they have high resistance. Your debuffs are reduced, but they still count for something. I think that there should be an effect every time that you case. Even if it's something less than you wanted. However, that takes a lot of new code and mechanics and might be out of the capabilities of a volunteer development team.Well, that's the thing - I think that kind of pulls Controllers and Dominators in an entirely different direction. There are very few abilities in CoH that are actually unresistable. The one that comes to mind is the -ToHit component of Flash Arrow, and that only deals something like 5%.
If debuffs being less useful at higher notoriety levels is indeed a problem, then that's something that's overarching, and shouldn't be used to justify granting only Controllers/Dominators this - that'd be a separate suggestion entirely: to change how the purple patch/AV resistance works, or making a portion of debuffs across the board unresistable.
As for the binary system, I figure that it's something that won't be changing any time soon - the least intrusive way to work with this in my mind is to create a gradient of one's own, which is where taking advantage of the places where it isn't binary. In this case, that's Overpower, and thus the reason why I decided to go the route of tweaking it. A control power that works 100% of the time 20% of the time effectively circumvents this whole binary issue, you know?
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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, Replacement said:
First off, overall take: I like the idea of the OP, but I feel like it could actually go further. Up the %s some, but I realize I have not stopped to think through the repercussions of multi-controller effects.
That said, I find myself wondering if Protection can be debuffed. I think this would be tricky since, iirc, that's what mez already is (example: if an enemy has 3 points of Hold Protection and I hit them with a Mag 3 hold, that's actually a -3 debuff to their Hold protection. Presumably, some separate aspect of the engine is watching for players to register any Protections of 0 or lower to apply status effects to).
But, if it could be done, I think it would simply be neat if Overpower was changed to a global proc that made attacks also add a long duration -1 protection.
EDIT: I guess an easier take on my thought there is simply changing Overpower's additional +1 mags to be much longer duration. Right now, it's about half the primary mez duration, but I think double would be better. That's a 44 second-ish Hold. yes, that's scary. No, I do not think that's an issue at Mag 1.I did propose a means of improving the chances a little in my original post, if in a slightly roundabout way - though likewise, I'm not the most certain about how the numbers should be. Basically, it'd up the chance of Overpower occurring depending on some condition.
Spoiler+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
Additionally, I did some napkin math in this post about the odds of Overwhelming Overpower as a little scenario sort of thing - helps to better visualise the chances of it all and so on, I find! There's also a nice one that I made to compare against a Dominator here. Might help to figure out what numbers would be best!
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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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15 hours ago, Noyjitat said:
This idea is like giving a tank more damage instead of bringing a brute or scrapper. If you want to hold it and provide additional damage you play a dom, if you want to sometimes hold it while also providing support/debuffs you play a controller. That's how its always been and that's why people play both.
I'm not sure if this is an entirely accurate analogy to what I'm proposing. Both Dominators and Controllers have control powers as their primary. In other words, they're going to be generally better at it than those with it as their secondary (none of which exist at the moment), similar to how Tankers have higher numbers for their armour powers compared to Brutes or Scrappers.
14 hours ago, Noyjitat said:What would be the point of playing a dominator if a controller could not only hold things much easier but also still have the 2nd strongest buffs/debuffs? Currently its balanced in the fact that a dom is better at controls but has few debuffs but more damage than a controller but still not better damage than a blaster, scrapper or brute.
My intention with Overwhelming Overpower definitely wasn't to make Controllers overshadow Dominators - the way I see it, Domination supplies Dominators with oodles of magnitude and duration, to the point where one alone has the potential to lock tougher enemies down to quite the reliable degree. In other words, they have potent controls, backed up with damage.
I wanted to provide Controllers with similar potency in their primary, but tried to be cognisant of how Dominators control enemies, and to avoid stepping on their toes. This is part of the reason why Overwhelming Overpower works on a chance basis - per my original post, I wanted to have Dominators come out on top when it comes to consistent and strong lockdown potential, to help differentiate the two.
Controller vs. Dominator: AV Edition
To compare, let me run through a hypothetical example between a Dominator with perma-Domination and a Controller with Overwhelming Overpower against an AV. With a Magnitude 6 Hold, a Dominator would need 9 uses of their power to lock the AV down (6 * 9 = 54) - once they have done so, they are permanently held so long as the Dominator keeps this up, no ifs or buts.
In comparison, with 9 applications of their Hold power, the likelihood of this Controller to have triggered an Overpower strong enough to hold an AV is 37% (19/20 ^ 9 gives us a 63% chance of no such Overpower occurring). Additionally, even if they manage to do so, the chance of doing so again in the duration while the AV is still held is slim - there is less staying power in their abilities.
In other words, the Dominator given time, is certain to lock down even the strongest foes and keep them that way. The Controller has the potential to lock down stronger enemies, sometimes faster or slower, but never permanently.
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18 hours ago, BitCook said:
Before I comment on the idea, part of the problem with controllers is the perception of how they work. The Dev's had put the PToD in place because they said punching statues is boring and to an extent, they were correct. However, it is functionally not that much difference in the current environment where a tank can be soft capped to Def and Res and ignore the AV taking all of the aggro. In each case, the team essentially acts against a helpless foe that is of no threat or consequence to the team. I always hated the logic behind the PToD because it basically favored a certain style of gameplay for damage mitigation.
For controllers, before I would want to sign on to any proposal for changes, I really feel the underlying assumptions about the class really need to be addressed before meaningful useful changes can be applied. Additionally, since we overlap with support sets, an examination why support class characters can not buff themselves on a majority of abilities should be revisited in this same conversation as well. Because the goal is to have fully functioning, fun ATs for use.
Hmm...personally speaking, I'm of the notion that the support powersets are generally fine when looking at them as a whole - certainly, there are some that could use some love (waves at @The Philotic Knight's Force Field thread), but they're usually always bringing something to the table, be it additional defense, further damage, picking up allies when they take too much aggro, and so on. At least from how I see it, this is less the case with control powersets depending on the kinds of enemies they face. Those with high levels of protection tend to circumvent the need for such powers as a result.
The archetypes with support powersets in them at least in my view do have ways to make up for their relative lack of solo ability - they're generally helping the rest of their team flourish. Certainly, a lot of them can solo, and do so very well, but they'll generally be better suited for teams (many exceptions with specific power choices due to how diverse support powersets are). Dark Miasma for instance lend themselves quite well solo, their survivability aided by controls and ToHit debuffs.
That being said, this is discussion is probably worth an entire thread in of itself.
18 hours ago, BitCook said:As for this idea. I don't mind it. I think it's probably an easy code solution and works with the existing mechanics. I think it would address some of the differences in how people see Dominators as better controllers. I think it would at least allow Controllers to feel a little use in their abilities when fighting tough enemies. I'm not a huge fan of the unpredictability of it, but at least it gives people a reason to use their powers.
I definitely wanted to avoid the permanent application of these status effects against tougher foes - it was why I decided to make this proposal chance based in the first place, building on the Overpower mechanic as it currently stands. I also talked about two potential additions to Overwhelming Overpower in my original post as well, one that had a more variable magnitude bonus, along with ways to increase the chance of an Overpower. Kind of like building crits on a Stalker, or something along those lines.
Additionally, I ran through some napkin math numbers on the likelihood of at least one Overwhelming Overpower triggering a little while back - what do you think of the current frequency?
18 hours ago, BitCook said:I think probably a better global solution would be to have tangible secondary effects that are essentially unresistable (or high enough to overcome hard targets natural resistance) that occur when you take away the control aspect of a power. I would think that resisted holds incur some kind of unresisted slow. Stuns might be a hefty -to hit debuff, or something like that. Turn the hold powers from being 0/1 binary powers into something that is a noticeable effect. I would think that the debuff would be something that would be additive for duration, not necessarily something to floor a target or you get back to the same issue you had with trivializing fights.
This would mean that regardless of what control power you used, it would be effective in some manner. Especially since Controllers and Dominators are given less defenses because their controls are supposed to allow them and their teams to survive.I'm...of mixed minds about this. Similarly to my response to Zen's post, I kind of view the control aspect of control powers to be their main draw, with the secondary effects that come with it as an extra sort of thing, you know? At the moment for instance, Darkness Control does provide -ToHit in a lot of their powers.
I figure that the Controller's secondary already works in that role for the most part, especially with some powersets moreso than others. Additionally, I figured that Overwhelming Overpower being chance based helped to create a 'gradient' of its own - Controllers this way can't lock down big bads unless multiple of them are on a team, but now when they're alone, they can still do so on occasion. That being said, if you're looking at something less of a 'binary', what do you think of @FoulVileTerror's suggestion here?
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6 hours ago, zenblack said:
So I read the initial post and I believe I get the idea you are going for. I like how you are trying to layer in the capability of affecting resistant/invulnerable enemies but I don't know if I agree with the direction you want to take your control.
The reason is that the hard control is so binary. It doesn't just cut the effectiveness of an AV, which is trying to compete with a 8 man team in terms of actions per second, survivability, and threat (by damage or other), it does too much. Which is why I think most AV/GM's come with nearly all forms of resistance (debuff, endurance, etc) to the point where it doesn't matter if you are inflicting those types of debuffs, they do comparatively little against an AV because it cannot be in those states or they crumble instantly this is why -Res and raw damage are much more effective.
I definitely agree - control is indeed a very binary affair: one's either affected by it, or they're not. I wanted to give Controllers the chance to lock down AVs/GMs, as I figure that in larger groups of them, they can lock them down anyhow by stacking enough...but that cutoff point means that any control before then (outside of purple triangles) is essentially 'wasted'.
I wanted to simulate that sliding scale of effectiveness found in the way AVs/GMs resist other things - debuffs, damage, and so on - by making it fairly unlikely for a single Controller on their own to have their powers work on them, but still include a chance there: impossible to lock down all of the time (like in a scenario with a whole team of Controllers say), but they can at least keep using their Holds knowing that they may have an effect.
I wrote up a post a little while back about the likelihood of an Overwhelming Overpower going off; perhaps the odds could do with some adjusting?
6 hours ago, zenblack said:---- RANDOM INITIAL Perhaps not well thought out?IDEA
I think in addition to your stacking/force multiplying effect you need to consider "lesser" status that inflict a more minor unresistable effect for each type of control. This affect could have certain levels of effectiveness that improve but require the application of control to maintain/progress. I would perhaps suggest that it requires different types of control to maintain and progress this effect and even has an impact of it's progression.
For example. Say you apply the immobilize status. It effects the AV theoretically (though does no immobilize) and you have this minor Overpower 1 debuff lets call IMPAIRED that does -X% defense for X sec. Depending on how the mechanic works, lets say you hit the AV with a hold power that meets whatever criteria that it needs to to change IMPAIRED to HINDERED which provides a different debuff type or combination and perhaps lowers the AV's Stun Protection by X. Alternatively, perhaps you hit the AV with a Disorient while they are IMPAIRED that changes this debuff to DAZED which provides a different debuff type/combination and lowers the AV's Fear Protection by X. So you had control of how you wanted to impact the AV. While on the other hand perhaps if you hit a HINDERED with a Sleep it changes it to SLUGGISH which again provides a different debuff type/combination and affects it with a noticeable recharge debuff and perhaps -Res for X sec
This is all very rough and it could work with or a blend of your amplification idea but it would allow a Controller to contribute with their control on those AV fights. All names and effects are just placeholders for options.
It's an interesting thought! The way I see how different control powers currently are is that they tend to already have secondary effects attached to them - they just come bundled in with the power itself rather than something inherent with the status effect. For instance, Earth Control has its defense debuffs, and Electric Control has its recovery debuffs.
That being said, I am not entirely certain that this would be a path that I'd personally go towards: I like Controllers because of their ability to lock down the battlefield primarily, with their secondary of buffs/debuffs backing them up, you know? So I wanted to keep the control aspect of their powers front and centre, even against tougher opponents, while also ensuring that they didn't trivialise fights in the process. As opposed to providing additional debuff effects, which their secondary already helps with.
It's that balance that I'm attempting to achieve, which is why I went the route that I did.
6 hours ago, zenblack said:Instead of all that gobbldygook I said use your system but have each Status have a defined soft control effect instead on AV/GM's. So you are able to apply your control but at the same time it's effect can be fine tuned. Thus providing the same effect without going heavy into work with more mechanics. Nice thing about this is you could see your visual control effect on the AV as well.
That might be a neat idea, depending on exactly what said soft control effects end up being!
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Additionally, I quite liked your posts on balance and the like from this thread, specifically this, @zenblack - as such, I'd definitely be interested in hearing your thoughts on this change if you've the time and it's something you're interested in, since it's a fairly large one for Controllers!
I tried to aim for a happy medium between "let their primary do some work against AVs/EBs outside of whenever they 'let' them (i.e. Purple Triangles)" and "avoid trivialising big bads and statue-ing them permanently in place". Do you think this proposal attempting to provide this went too far? Too little? Something else entirely? Would be glad to hear your thoughts!
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3 minutes ago, Solarverse said:
I'll admit that during the leveling process I had PFF in my build, but once I picked up Dispersion Field and Manuevers + Combat Jumping, I dropped it. I can also see it coming in handy when Anti-matter/Posi drops a nuke and similar situations. However, I feel like those types of situations are so incredibly rare that I simply don't put PFF in my build anymore. I would like to, but not as it stands. I get you though and can't really argue your point, all I can do is provide my point of view with my particular character.
Personally, between Force Bubble and Personal Force Field, I prefer having Personal Force Field - in my experience, Force Bubble is far more situational. Having an instant immunity power (effectively immune anyway) is more valuable to me than a keep-away field. I'd rather a very situational T9 than a very situational T1, which would be mandatory on support secondaries.
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5 minutes ago, Solarverse said:
1. 1-4: I am probably wrong, but the reason I am going against that philosophy with my idea is because the way the game has changed since release due to mechanics changing over time and the way people play now in comparison to then, I personally feel that the mechanic philosophy that was implemented by the OG Devs at and since issue #1, has become outdated for today's current game. I am not disagreeing with your statement as your deduction of why those powers are placed where they currently are rings absolutely true with me. I simply question if the game and players have changed to a point where that philosophy no longer applies?
I'm not really sure about this. You're getting Personal Force Field at level one - at the lower levels, the pace of the game tends to be much slower. Incarnates are a non-factor, as are nukes, ancillary armour powers for squishies, etc.
Having a way of basically mitigating all damage on the fly sounds much more useful back at those lower levels than at the higher ones where you can easily build for survivability/have a proper attack chain/lock down groups of enemies.
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@Tacheyon may I interest you in something tangentially related to this in a potential Controller Inherent buff proposal? Always happy to get some feedback/critique from people most familiar with the archetype!
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8 minutes ago, skoryy said:
What Terror mentioned: A third bar that could be whittled down by continued application of status effects. Once it gets to 0, boom: The AV/GM goes stunned or some other affect and all attacks get bonus damage. Then the bar fills back up and the cycle continues.
It's definitely an interesting thought, though I'd personally go with specific thresholds to break away from the whole 'binary controls' thing that the current system relies on with Magnitude. Otherwise, it does feel somewhat like the Magnitude system of status effects, except Holds don't wear off until they build enough charge, you know? At least, from how I'm seeing it...I'll look forward to when you end up making a proper write up on it!
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4 minutes ago, FoulVileTerror said:
I brought up the Resolve mechanic as a potential solution to the dual problems of Controls not really being meaningful in a damage-as-means-to-progress meta, AND in this being a game nominally about being heroes and villains, but ultimately all conflict resolution coming down to violence.
But that's really a topic for a different thread. This one's your baby, @Blackfeather. At most, I would be curious to know if you feel that both our solutions would be necessary or beneficial in a theoretical situation where both were applied.
Hmm...I'll admit, they do sound a little bit much when combined together. Overwhelming Overpower is perhaps more conservative in its scope, which means that it's potentially limited in what it can do to help the whole 'binary controls' thing.
Resolve sounds interesting, especially if it were combined with the whole 'progressive mez' idea tossed about in this thread as well - reach specific points, cause specific effects. That being said, it's something a little larger in scope than I can properly envision...probably one of the reasons why I went the route I did here! 😅
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1 minute ago, skoryy said:
My preferred solution is actually break bars, but I don't think this is a bad idea either.
I think that was mentioned a few posts into this thread - something by @FoulVileTerror I believe? Something like a third bar that could be worked away on was their proposal, or something along those lines.
What do you mean by break bars, out of curiosity?
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Overwhelming Overpower: A Controller Inherent Buff - Control AVs and GMs!
in Suggestions & Feedback
Posted
On another note, I noticed you talking about Controllers in this thread here, @Mystic_Cross - while it's only somewhat related, I think this proposal might interest you; I discuss the other 'critical strike' aspect of Controllers in their Overpower mechanic, and how it might be improved to help them lock down bigger targets. Would be glad for you to give it a read, along with any of your thoughts on it!