Galaxy Brain

Checkmate

Unfortunately its been a big back-burner project for me 😅 Working on some new tools for it tho!

Agree here, the best course is always to add more than take away unless for whatever reason taking away ends up with a positive outcome (rare but it happens).

Yeah, Fire Melee definitely has problems where it gave up all mitigation but did not get the firepower that say, Fire Blast or even Fire Control got in exchange 😞

Superman at least has superman level things to deal with.

Those are valid and hella fun..... for the individual!!! That dynamic changes the moment you have multi-player though.

This is valid, but is also jumping through hoops if they have to go well out of their way to organize "hey gang, can we not use XYZ thing?" Getting an enhancement unslotter is also a matter of a few clicks, but it puts the burden on the player to take those actions to participate. Likewise, a player joining in on content that they know they are "above" or "below" has different connotations than joining content that you would expect to be balanced to your level and then finding out some members of the team are far and away above what you're trying to do which can be boring for the uber players and likewise the non ubers who get scraps. We should be able to have equal access to feel super, which requires content suited for superness both when looking forwards to new dangerous content as well as backwards to "why is superman helping Robin clear street crime?"

The difference to me is that, given in HC incarnate abilities are given to you "naturally" by playing the game, it'd be like asking somebody to unslot enhancements from a power. Yeah, you can do it but you gotta go through some hoops and menus in order to do so (another factor). Its not like in another game when you walk in with the "Big Gun 90000" that you unlocked from finding the secret boss of the secret dungeon that you can just swap out of.

So, these things are intertwined and it ALWAYS comes up when difficulty is mentioned. Addressing each point: 1) The player can choose not to be OP, so it's ok to be OP. This is incredibly contextual, and it is also very important to distinguish the CHOICE TO NOT BE OP vs the CHOICE TO BE OP. Choice to be OP: Starting with the latter, many games give optional means to be OP that you have to opt into. For example, many Mario / Nintendo games give you an Uber Mode such as the Golden Tanookie suit (or whatever it is) that makes you permanently invincible, lets you fly, and so on. However in order to GET that power up that makes you OP you have to either enable it or DIE a bunch to where the game gives you the OPTION to become OP at the start of the level with either a "Hey buddy, we see you are struggling do you want to be OP? (Y/N)" or even better a [ ? ] box that carries that power up where you respawn that lets you opt into the powered up mode with your actions or ignore it if you so choose, hell it can even be seen as condescending by some! Another example would be RPGs where there are super OP items that you have to go out of your way to get. Easy example from what I played recently is from Assassin's Creed Valhalla where you can (spoiler alert) get both Excalibur and Mjolnir as weapons. Both are about as dumb as you would imagine balance-wise with godly stats and special effects, BUT you have to do multiple side quests that are not part of the main story in order to get either of them and put in a lot of hours in order to achieve each step of said side quests, etc, etc. Its something you actually have to work towards and at the end of the day somewhat like the Golden Tanookie suit it is something that is EASY to opt into, and opt out of (just equip/unequip it). Lots of games have similar examples to these two, but the theme across the board is usually they are optional things that are not forced on you and you really need to go out of your way to attain them. However, contextually you can also choose to be OP by doing content in the game you have severely outpaced. Exactly like the meme of "the first area boss vs me who did all the sidequests", how many of us have played Pokemon and gone back to the starting area with a Legendary to decimate some Caterpies? The game lets you do it sure, but it is far from the intended path. In COH Terms, this could be equated to getting a super decked out Purple/Winter T4 Incarnate build and running -1/x1 radio missions instead of tackling something that is "appropriate" to your power level. Choice to NOT BE OP: The opposite however is when you have to opt out of being OP. Its indeed a very different feeling than the above as often times you have to go out of your way to NOT be overpowered, or even just challenging yourself above the normal difficulty level. To take the example back to Mario, outside the example of the OP Golden Tanookie suit the game loads you up with normal power ups they expect you to use in each level. As a player, you could choose to avoid all of that and try and beat the level as normal / mini Mario and get by with pure skill and no power ups as much as possible. However, the game as designed loves to toss them at you with Mushrooms literally moving towards you when one spawns! For the average player, it would be foolish not to go for the Fire Flower that popped up during normal gameplay, but it *is* excusable to not go out of your way to find that invisible block you have to backflip to that gives you the invincibility star. An example on the RPG side would be opting to use crappy/no gear at all and trying to complete the game or punch above your weight class. Back to Assassin's Creed, you could choose to enter an area above your level and take all your gear off and rely on pure basics to get the job done. The game gives you all sorts of fun gear to use throughout the main story, much like power ups in Mario that pop up as you go across the level, but you could technically choose not to use them despite the difficulty curve expecting you to use at least the basics. This particular example is opposite of the one above where instead of being over-leveled and steamrolling the low level stuff, you are under-leveled and trying to take on the higher levels, or figuratively tying one hand behind your back and wearing a blindfold when the game doesn't ask that of you. In COH Terms, this would be like choosing not to slot any enhancements at all. Not just IO's, but ANY and trying to tackle stuff, or deliberately trying to take down Psychic resistant enemies with Psy Blast when you had the option not to. 2) Tackling the "Appropriate" content in the "Appropriate" way. What I talked about above were examples of players going out of their way to either boost themselves or nerf themselves relative to the content they were in while touching on the "intended" way to play. I feel it is important to define that first and foremost: The "intended" way to play is to follow and complete the main objectives of the game while using the tools provided to you along said task. Choosing NOT to use said tools will make your task harder, while going above and beyond to get MORE TOOLS will make the task easier for your efforts. In COH Terms, this is playing the game where you defeat enemies, complete missions, level up and get new powers and slots, get Inf, and slot enhancements into said powers and slots to make yourself stronger and able to tackle increasingly potent enemies. The Base Game gives you lots of tools such and Enh drops, Stores you can visit to buy enhancements, dropped Salvage and Recipes for IO's, and past lvl 50 Dropped Incarnate Salvage and Incarnate XP. The latter two I feel is important to bring up as part of HC that is "intended" as it falls naturally into the player's lap while completing the core tasks as you play. Things like trading on the market, winter/summer events, and so on are "extra" things you choose to opt into and I would lump them into "Choose to be OP", where purposefully avoiding even the basics would be "Choose to NOT be OP / Choose to be more difficult". Its obvious that a lvl 50 going to Atlas Park and nuking hellions is something funny and not a real problem, as there is nothing in it for the lvl 50. They are going WAY out of their way to do that compared to where they would be intended to go. Likewise, its obvious a lvl 20 character running around Peregrine Island is in a similar situation where they chose to put themselves in such a difficult spot. Where it gets very gray is when you have those "OP" characters having paths crossed with those on the "Intended" path, IE lvl 45-50 content where they can join with all bells and whistles while others cannot match them. In a way, it is sort of like the OP characters went back to an area they have exceeded, but they still have incentives to be there like if Hellions gave 10inf and a 1/1000 drop chance per pop at all times. In a single player game, it really doesn't matter too much but when in a multi-player environment where you can influence other's experiences it gets very murky very fast. 3) What do? All that said, the BEST answer is that there needs to be more stuff to do with the Incarnate Characters. With HC more or less granting you the ability to be an incarnate just for playing normal content, I feel it becomes sort of an intended part of the game much how Mario would naturally go after the Mushroom or an RPG protagonist would equip that cool sword from the mission. It is no longer some extra thing you HAVE TO OPT INTO, its just part of the game. Telling folks "lol you can just not do it" is akin to saying "Bruh, just play Mario blindfolded you can totally do that if its too easy". It means they have to go out of their way through various extra steps (getting a blindold or going through a bunch of menus) just to do X thing. At some point the line has to be drawn where content or the ability to interact with the content has to be looked at in order to preserve the flow and gameplay experience, and for something that USED TO BE OPT IN now becoming "Normal part of the game", the content either has to acknowledge that or it should be gated out of things it should not be in much like how a lvl 50 has no benefit for yeeting hellions other for the hell of it.

The regen is kind of sus by itself... what if it had some sort of scaling effect per unit in its radius?

Soon(tm)

It doesn't matter tbh, its a matter of "is this asset in use?" If no, it should be reasonable to be unlocked for use.

Personally, I feel like if the stated policy were inacted for folks who have not been logged in for quite some time, it would be fair. The caveat of course that this hits accounts that have not logged in at all within a long period of time. This means they did not open the launcher, launch the game, and log into the server select screen in YEARS. Being realistic, yes there are likely exceptions but I would put money on it being a rarity compared to the vast amount of people who might fall under the umbrella of "tried it and never coming back". Looking at the data our lovely GM quoted earlier, there were 64,519 accounts made in the first month or so of HC going live in 2019. The character count per account averages to about 6 (going off this as a safe-ish bet), if only 5% of those accounts have been inactive sine that data was pulled and we thanos snapped the locks on their names, that would free up (with napkin math) nearly 20,000 names. If we look at the amount of accounts that are in that 5%, that is 3225 people. I highly doubt that even an 8th of those would fall into an exception clause outside of "they just left the game". Mathematically, not a lot of folks would actually lose names either as it would be an odds game that you would pick 1/20,000 that have been released, which is also why as dubious as it seems (and I am highly sus myself), the claim from the OG devs may be interpreted as the names being available yet not taken as much as they thought. Id love to see harder data on that. From my perspective, I think a year or multi year limit before "unlocks" start to happen per the policy isn't an issue of "stealing" names so much as recycling unused assets. Names are ultimately a commodity that we technically have a limit on per server, there can't truly be infinite like even with purple IOs / etc that you can always get in game. If it was enacted just on accounts that have been gone for a significant amount of time, the odds are that both that person isn't coming back as well as their names would likely be safe if they were to return due to odds.

This would rock

These were all base values 🙂

Double post but w/e: This all said, the MM personal attacks are in a *weird* spot given the pets are so, so much better that its worth more to let them fly and focus on secondary abilities...

To break it down a bit more, lets look at Necromancy: Summoning all the pets + upgrading them will cost 51.01 endurance. Tallying all the damage they could deal to a single target if they all used their powers exactly once (and all hit, etc) within Supremacy range they will deal an average of: 1389.69 damage in a "complete" rotation 1389.69 / 51.01 = 27.25 damage per end Blaster Nova = 27.72 end for 250.2 damage = 9.03 dpe Blaster Sniper Blast = 14.35 end for 281.5 damage = 19.62 dpe (all values unenhanced) This all assumes the pets just get 1 attack off once each as well. Assuming again that you keep them alive for multiple rotations, that damage adds up FAST. If they each get off 2 rotations, that DPE value DOUBLES as you only paid "once". Edit: One step further, lets compare apples to apples with the energy blaster and see what 51~ish End gets you: T1+T2+T3+Snipe+Cone = 50.33 end for 639.32 damage, add in the defiance boosts since we added Supremacy and that is 855.41 total (no other enhancement) 855.41/50.33 = just about 17 DPE, still only about 60% of what the MM does at minimum!

;D

I'd love to get a villainous theme-team going too 😄 In the past we have had fun with stuff like "All Beam Rifles" / etc, something like that redside could be a hoot.

On the note of Dam/End, with the caveat that you *do* keep your pets alive encounter to encounter you can streeeeeetttccccchhhh that ~50 endurance incredibly far.

Its all about friends who do stuff together, especially you and me. Id be down anywhere, any time at all....

@Galaxy Brain 😄

I think this is true of some of the more unique proc effects too. Like, the -End one (Tempest?) on ST ranged attacks is just not... good. If it were equatable to a damage proc that'd be one thing but as it stands it doesn't even compete with some of the worse utility procs.

I think I may have asked this before, but it could be worth noting: Is it more an issue of Damage procs in particular, since other procs are really not good in comparison?

Can't reply in full, but the % chance to proc is covered in the damage screenshot with each proc only doing ~34 damage instead of 70+ damage they'd do in full. Averaged over time, you'd expect to see that screenshot per hit. Edit: ppl beat me to it lol