Blackfeather

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! 😅

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?

...speaking of which. More Controller talk in this thread by @skoryy that I noticed - any thoughts you might have on the proposal here?

Same with @BitCook as well - hello there! Saw you talking about crowd control powers in this thread. My proposal attempts to help even out the balance for the lockdown powers of Controllers somewhat. I'd be glad to know what you think about them: any feedback, improvements, critiques, etc. would be much welcome!

I should probably ping @SeraphimKensai about this suggestion as well - I recall you talking about changing AoE Holds a little while back, so I imagine you've got a fair grasp on how Controllers/Dominators currently function. As such, if you've any stance on this sort of thing - improvements, critiques, etc. - I'd be glad to hear about them!

Oh! My apologies for making that mistake - it's true that crowd control can be a bit annoying for archetypes without built in protection. Controllers do at least have Psionic Mastery's Indomitable Will to help even things out, and proactive powers that can disable the enemy first; can't be locked down if you do it beforehand and all that. It's definitely a bit of a balancing act in my opinion; part of the fun for me in CoH is being able to target any problem enemy mobs beforehand. However, this can become a little bit difficult in larger groups, along with a myriad of other factors such as resistances to actually being controlled in the first place, etc. I imagine level/mob design goes a long way to help with that. Anyhow, glad to hear that changes of this nature for Controllers are potentially desired at least!

I also noticed you talking about the binary mez system from this thread, @Bill Z Bubba. I'd definitely be interested in hearing your thoughts on how Overwhelming Overpower might help in regards to making this system a little less rigid, if it helps at all? Any improvements/changes you might have in mind?

Interesting - thanks for posting your perspective! Most of my views of CoH are filtered through the lens of a "tabletop game translated to an MMO" myself - Controllers for me feel a lot like playing a D&D Wizard with a heavy focus on battlefield control, buffing and debuffing. In such games, I've seen the Big Bad Evil Guy of a campaign taken down or at least temporarily disabled by an unlucky saving throw; sometimes players get in a lucky strike, and other times...well, not so much. It's one of the reasons why I went the route I did, with a chance based system of overpowering an enemy; for stronger ones, a lower chance is generally the norm, as opposed to being flat out immune, or 'allowing' to be locked down a la the Purple Triangles (another was the fact that it's basically an extension of an existing system - I generally prefer changes that are less disruptive or 'build' on the current). While it's not a one to one comparison, I do think it fits: for instance, all our attacks are rolls of the dice behind the scenes, after all - there's no worry about having to aim one's hits as they're abstracted away. 'Skill' at playing comes at a different 'top-down' level from my perspective, akin to, well, characters on a tabletop: when to use powers, who to target them at, what'll be most effective at the moment, etc. Similarly, while the BBEG themselves might be formidable, I tend to see action economy as the main challenge to manage: one AV alone isn't too much of a challenge, but when they're backed up with others...well. I'll point over to the Penelope Yin Task Force and its killer ambushes when not managed properly. I see Overwhelming Overpower as providing a little more of that chance factor for Controllers, rather than feeling just a 'certainty' of not locking stronger enemies down alone. In other words, actually allowing for that 'when', 'who' and 'what' for the Controller's primary powerset when facing AVs/GMs - a Corruptor can still use both their primaries and secondaries and feel that they're contributing with most of their arsenal for instance. Of course, that doesn't mean that there aren't MMOs that provide more of that dynamism out there. I'm just not sure if CoH is quite the game for it, at least, not without a major extensive overhaul to a lot of the systems currently in place.

On another note, I just remembered a relevant comic pertaining to this. 🤣

Come to think of it, I should probably ping @oedipus_tex - from what I've seen, you've got a lot of experience with both Controllers and Dominators as well, so getting your point of view about this proposed suggestion for Controllers would be great!

Controllers do get Overpower, which to be fair with it, does mean that they can sometimes lock down bosses with a single use of their power, along with better handle enemies with slightly higher levels of protection (e.g. Vahzilok Abominations vs. Immobilises) thanks to the additional Mag 1 it provides. Extending it to be powerful enough to affect AVs/GMs, albeit at a reduced rate was me trying to find a way to let Controllers do the things that Dominators can in a way, but differently - potentially more potent, but less reliable.

I've got...feelings about this. Like I've said in my original post, it kind of feels like control powers become something of an accessory to the rest of a Controller's arsenal - they're really only 'allowed' to work due to AVs 'letting' them via the purple triangles, not to mention GMs, which don't even have that cycling immunity, to my knowledge. The way I see it: Buff/debuff powers work, but are limited to some degree Attack powers work, but deal less damage Armour powers work, and provide survivability But Control powers flat out don't except for a few scenarios, usually when in a team focused on it So finding a way to let these status effect powers to work better as the sole Controller (Dominators have a consistently high magnitude, so I figure locking down AVs/GMs isn't really an issue for them) on the team without it being 100% up all the time was one of the main goals of Overwhelming Overpower - multiple Controllers at once tip the binary to the opposite side and guarantee lockdown. Hope this makes sense!

Oh! Should probably ping @Vanden about this as well - I proposed an addition to Overwhelming Overpower in the original post that goes something like this: similar to how Stalkers are able to build levels of 'crits', having a similar +Chance to Overpower might be useful for increasing the likelihood of an Overpower!! strong enough to handle a sufficiently strong enemy. Per the original post, here are a few ideas for 'stacks' (I'm thinking 5% right now): 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) 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 With the 25% chance of each Overpower being a +54 or higher magnitude, this might be a pretty interesting way of increasing the likelihood of making it go off without making it a guarantee - trying to avoid that to prevent the whole City of Statues situation that MTeague brought up a while back. What do you think?

It's definitely an interesting thought! Though I do wonder how a similar system would be scaled up to Giant Monsters, say.

To my knowledge, the Purple Patch does mean that the duration of status effects is shortened against higher level enemies, of which enemies with higher status effect protection levels such as AVs and GMs, tend to be. With many of them about 4 levels higher for the most part, that does half the duration of controls at least.

5 out of 100 actually! So 1 in 20. And striking that balance is definitely important - do you think the other idea that was brought up, about a +Chance to Overpower might help in that regard to assist in its reliability, while still providing that element of chance that prevents a guarantee that tougher enemies will be controlled? I still haven't hashed out exactly how that increase in chance might look like - a few ideas have been tossed about: Stacking percentage based on how many status effects on an enemy are applied Stacking percentage based on how many recent control powers have been used Stacking percentage based on previous controls that weren't an Overpower (came up with that one just now)

Handling the binary nature of status effects within the current system was one of the main goals of this suggestion. I don't want a Controller to trivialise very strong enemies, but on the other hand, it feels wrong that just because they're unable to stack enough magnitude, their control powers become accessories to the rest of their arsenal. So the balance I chose was to lean into the chance based nature of their already existing Overpower mechanic, giving it a chance to increase the magnitude of powers by more than just 1...enough to instantly control an AV/EB/GM on some occasions - bridging the gap between 'always' and 'never' locked down. Or at least, that was the intent. What do you think of those current numbers in the original post? I definitely went through some revisions of them - hopefully you like it!

Basically, the idea of "+Chance to Overpower" is something that a Controller can predict: just not with absolute certainty. Instead of a 'certain' Magnitude gain from consecutive powers, I wanted to merely increase the chance that an Overpower (and therefore in this system, an Overpower that can affect AVs say) - I figure that this way, we avoid the problem of status effects being binary in nature: you balance the guarantee of high magnitude powers with the uncertainty of obtaining them. In other words, I kind of see mechanics that make a Controller's status effect powers more certain and more powerful at the same time to be...well. A little bit too much like a Dominator's Domination mechanic, hahah. Per my original post, I intended for the change in this mechanic to make Controller's less reliable at locking things down compared to Dominators (perma dom lock's beastly!), but potentially far more potent (insta-Hold, etc.) - solo, I envision it like the difference between these two scenarios: A Dominator, with their constantly powerful status effect powers, will eventually lock down an AV A Controller, with their variably powerful status effects, may lock down an AV, either earlier or later than a Dominator It's meant to be a change from how things currently are, where a single Controller isn't really able to do much against powerful foes, since alone, they can't really stack high enough magnitudes to do anything with their powers. No worries! Numbers are not my strong suit either. I have to give props to @HelenCarnate for pointing out my math gaffes. I definitely don't want to supplant what the Purple Triangles already does for status effects - I just want to allow Controllers to let their powers be used on their own terms, or at least, have a chance of doing so. By tying that to the Overpower mechanic that's already in place, I figure that provides them with some level of, well, control in trying to shift these odds in their favour - for example, slotting for recharge to help roll the dice more often. Similarly, that's why I suggested the stacking chance of Overpower occurring on enemies with separate status effects (I figure an extra 5% per effect would be pretty neat) inflicted on them (even if they aren't affected) - this provides a further incentive to slotting for a status effect's duration: prolonging these extra 'stacks', and therefore, the likelihood of Overpower occurring. I did want to strike a balance between "will hardly happen" and "may happen to often" - I'll definitely leave it to people more versed in math than I am to say whether or not the numbers I've put forth strike that balance, hahah.

I did end up editing my original post to adjust some numbers a while back - these are how they look right now: 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!!! So the revised probabilities now have AVs rolling a "nat 1" to be affected by a one shot status effect power (20% chance for Overpower, 25% chance for it being an additional mag 54 or higher). A 5% chance in other words. A nice point of comparison I like to make is to look at how an AV cycles between their purple triangles: 50 seconds up and 25 seconds down. Using the revised numbers in my original post, here's the likelihood that at least one Overpower!! or higher will trigger in those 50 seconds, given a 5 second hold (including cast time and a fairly optimised recharge). A Controller in 50 seconds would have 10 separate chances to potentially overpower an AV in a single hit, each one being a 1 in 20 chance. Therefore, to look at the possible outcomes where this doesn't occur, we do this: 19^10 / 20^10 = 59.87% In other words, there's a 40.13% chance that at least one Overpower!! will occur during those 50 seconds - not bad! For comparison's sake, let's look at how these numbers look in those previous numbers ( 1 in 25 chance )... 24^10 / 25^10 = 66.48% This results in a 33.52% chance that, given 10 uses of the power in those 50 seconds, at least one of them will be enough to lock down an AV. Hope this clears the math up a little! It's much more likely than you might be visualising it...I definitely got caught up with some math issues myself here.

I definitely looked at tweaking the Overpower mechanic with the assumption that there'd be only one or two Controllers on a team - basically giving them a chance to lock down stronger enemies even without sufficient magnitude that, say, an entire team of CCers would provide. It won't be a consistent lockdown of course, but I did want to think up a way of allowing even one Controller to let their status effects work to some degree against enemies with high protection levels.

Initially, I also wondered whether or not the nature of status effects in CoH meant that they'd need an overhaul to help them be a bit less binary. However, I kind of came to the conclusion that such effort would probably be a lot of work, with the potential for a lot of unexpected side effects. To compete with the binary nature of magnitude, I figured that introducing a chance based element to how likely a status effect would be to work on different kinds of enemies would help even things out. Happily enough, the Overpower mechanic, with its additional magnitude is essentially this; a stand-in for saving throw dice for enemies...so long as it has different potential magnitude strengths. This results in us creating a gradient with the current system: one based on chance. Perhaps some mechanic to temporarily increase the likelihood of Overpower occurring might do some good, accompanying the tweaks I proposed in the original post, similar to how Scrappers have the Critical Strikes ATO to boost the chance of landing a critical (except inherent to the Controller rather than as something to slot). Maybe a scaling percentage chance to Overpower depending on how many status effects an enemy is currently inflicted with, even if they're not actually affected? E.g. 3% for a Hold, Immobilize, Sleep, leading to an additional 9% chance to Overpower.

Here's the link to the unofficial Homecoming wiki's version of this: https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Purple_Patch Basically these tables are multipliers that show how the effects of powers are changed at different level discrepancies. So at +4, with an enemy that is 4 levels higher than you are, the multiplier becomes 0.48. So multiply 500 by 0.48, and that gives you 240 damage for enemies 4 levels higher than you. The actual enemy 'ranks' don't matter in terms of determining the effects of the purple patch (though as a thumb rule, Minions con at the same level as you do at the default notoriety, with Lieutenants and Bosses at higher levels), just the level they are at, and how many levels they are above/below you. Hope this clears things up!

Yup! I talked about this mechanic with @FoulVileTerror to explain why I didn't think it needed scaling with larger groups - status effects are a binary affair, so this tweak to the mechanic is mostly to benefit a Controller on their own, or in a group as the sole CCer. In a group with multiple Controllers, Overwhelming Overpower isn't necessary; you're basically guaranteed to lock things down. But on the flipside, without enough, you're basically guaranteed not to be able to do so, either against an Archvillain with their special protection up, or a Giant Monster. That 'binary critical mass' is what I'm attempting to mitigate the need of, by providing this additional chance. I'm definitely not interested in replacing the purple triangles - just supplementing it in the scenarios where the binary nature of controls means that they end up not working on the enemies most worth trying to lock down.

Well! In that case I can definitely up these chances. Alright! So, using that new table from before... 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 30% 6% = 6 in 100 uses Overpower! +54 = affect an Archvillain 15% 3% = 3 in 100 uses Overpower!! +100 = affect a Giant Monster 5% 1% = 1 in 100 uses Overpower!!! With that 8 Controller scenario again, given they attempt a Hold twice, with a 1 in 25 chance of locking down an AV, the odds of having it never occur would be... 24^9 divided by 25^9, which results in 69.25%, for a 30.75% chance of an AV level Overpower going off. I can probably safely up the likelihood again...maybe actually have AVs susceptible to a Hold on a nat 20 roll? In which case the table will now be: 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!!! Which'd be something like 19^9 divided by 20^9, which results in 63%, for a 37% chance for an AV level Overpower going off. That sounds fairly decent!

I see! So in the example I put forth, with 8 Controllers attempting to Hold an AV twice, the likelihood of none of them being an AV level hold would go something like: 99^16 divided by 100^16, which results in...85.15%? Which I think results in a 14.85% chance of getting an AV level hold up. Hopefully I didn't mess anything up this time around!