America's Angel

Sorry for the radio silence! The leaderboard didn't move at all last week, so there wasn't much to report. This week, however, the unthinkable happened... Top 10 Ranked 7/27/2021: 1 Madvillain (+1) 2 America’s Angel 3 T Mart 4 Alouu 5 Ridicc 6 Kencian 7 magecow 8 Blackhearted 9 mjb 10 Mushroom Ranks are calculated by Elo Score. Source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZetLGnWhKXeE9o_5KG3ZI-rpdhde5YigzQlorIsOR4k/edit?usp=sharing Reason for movement: We ran another off-meta night last night. Madvillain made his triumphant return with his Ill/Poison controller Illest Villain with a smooth 4-0 clean sweep. This was the last thing we all saw... As always, if you're interested in seeing your name in the top 10, taking part in our weekly Sunday Fightclub events, or learning more about 1v1 melee fights, then feel free to join up to our discord, here: https://discord.gg/knq839NUM4

I've yet to encounter any evidence that procs are a balance problem in PvE or PvP. Feel free to link me to any numbers you have on this. I'm always happy to look at data. I agree with you that nerfing procs is a bad idea. I also agree that adding more procs to increase the diversity of builds is a good idea. (I've actually advocated for exactly this on the testing discord plenty of times.) With that said, none of these extra procs would stop damage being king in CoH. That's just how the game is, and always will be. And tbh, damage being king is not so much a "problem" with CoH as much as it is a cornerstone. It's pretty much been the status quo ever since the game launched. I remember Synapse mentioning this way back on the old forums back when the game was live. Specifically, that a lot of the non-damage stuff players do is just smoke and mirrors to make the game seem more complex than it actually is. A lot of the issues the OG devs had was trying to find ways to make things like -recharge -end -recovery -accuracy -tohit, and other such debuffs/buffs actually matter vs mobs. They never really did. (Especially post IO set bonuses). Damage being king is more pronounced in PvE. In PvE the enemies we fight are just bags of HP. So the only things that actually matter are damage, -res (which is just an indirect damage buff), -hp (which is a ghetto attack) and to a lesser extent things like -regen. PvP enemies on the other hand are players. They're more than just bags of HP. Their end matters. Their recharge matters. Their accuracy matters. Half the debuffs that do nothing in PvE actually do stuff in PvP. Hell, healing matters in PvP because enemies do spike damage and defense is mostly useless. What the game desperately needs is enemy encounters where a lot of these forgotten mechanics actually play a role. Enemies that spike individual members of a team, that heal their team-mates the second they start taking damage, that evade, that have higher accuracy than normal mobs so that -tohit matters, that have OP powers on really low recharges so that slows matter, that have higher defense than normal to counter our reliance on set bonuses for accuracy, etc. More complex enemies are what this game needs in order to create more diverse gameplay. (And luckily for us, that's what Cobalt, Piecemeal, and the other content devs seem to be focusing on right now.) What the game does not need is easy-to-implement-nerfs, justified by anecdotes and forum hysteria, that makes killing +4/8 trash mobs slightly slower, but otherwise no more difficult than before. So yeah, if you think the problem is "damage is king", the only solution is to make another game. However, if you think we should add more (non-damage) procs then yeah, totally with you.

Welcome home :)

No probs. Happy to answer any proc-related questions y'all might have. I've done a lot of testing with them. And yeah I completely agree. I said back on Page 2 of this thread that the first step should be identifying if there was a problem at all. I think that's a better approach than presupposing there is a problem...and then to go looking for proof. It's important to identify, specifically, what the situation is, before we start trying to come up with changes. Otherwise we just end up with solutions in search of problems. (c.f. the majority of posts in this thread.) I'm in the process of uploading a few videos I've put together that showcase a range of different builds (procc'd out, softcapped, aoe procs only, etc) vs +4/8 content. Will tag you in the thread once youtube decides to stop stealing my life finishes uploading them. Hopefully it'll open the floodgates for other players to do the same. Tempest is only bad in PvE, because end drain doesn't matter in PvE. In PvP, it's pretty good. You'll find this with a bunch of procs, actually. Some of them are extremely useful in PvP, and allow for extremely diverse PvP builds, but otherwise useless in PvE because all that matters in PvE is damage.

Spent this afternoon running a few more tests with this: Had some interesting findings. Will share once the videos are uploaded.

I was asking the Player-1. While I appreciate you are probably trying to be helpful, I don't think you are in a position to provide the information I asked for.

Already exists: https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Set_Enhancements_with_Special_Effects More up to date version, here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vd4ZZd1jfhOzdZZkGxC9O0NN5G0T1EdWPu_XRrV6s0U/edit Does your asking this mean the dev team doesn't have any hard data that proves procs are overperforming?

AH: /macro_image Teleportation_Wentworths "Wentworths" "ah" AE: /macro_image Architect_Accolade_Power "AE" "architect" Arena: /macro_image "GenericPower_AutoOverlay" "Arena" "arenalist"

I remember the Matrix Online GMs. They were incredible. (One of them, Ben Chamberlain, now writes webcomic called Supermassive Black Hole.) I remember hearing stories about him RPing as characters from the game with other players. He'd show up as Trinity or Morpheus, and run player events/RP with famous RP players/guilds, and generally just be visible in a way that made the playerbase feel that the game lore mattered, and that they were interacting with it. The closest CoH on live ever came to something like this, PVP-wise, was the RPVP events that used to take place on Virtue. There was a group of player characters called The Sadistic Seven. And they ran an RPVP campaign across a number of months where they tried to invade Paragon. Each month they would try and invade via a different zone (Bloody Bay, Siren's Call, Warburg, and Recluse's Victory.) Plenty of RPers and casuals joined up on each side to try and help/hinder them. And although the outcome was predetermined (villains lose) everyone had a great time. Despite not being competative in the slightest, it is easily the highlight of my time PvPing in CoH. Now, I know the Homecoming GMs sometimes show up on Everlasting RPing as the iconic characters. (Scirocco, Mako, and Foreshadow being the most frequent) But how cool would it be to have events where players had to face-off/team-up with a dev-controlled signature hero? How epic would a PvP battle be between two sides, one ledby Positron, the other by Ghost Widow? How awesome would it be to have these long, ongoing, player-involved server-wide storylines that can incorporate RP, PvE, PvP, AE, base building, and the forums/discord as a constant source of event news?

It is a slow process. I say this as someone who has been there for the entire process. From when Faultline started making PvP changes last year, until now. It takes a long time to make powerset balance tweaks. Because you have to go through the following process: Get consensus to test Get dev time to implement requested change Players test it Players report feedback Changes get added to next major release (which has its own beta cycle) That takes time. And in some cases (like the Fortunata Proc) require a code-change to implement. This means the change will take a very long time to happen. In the case of the fortunata proc, the devs have wanted to nerf it for months, but now it's going to have to wait until Page 3 is released. Because that's how game development works sometimes. Minor changes are not always easy to implement. What you want is already happening. Just very slowly. Because: volunteer dev team. Underperforming powersets are being buffed. Right now Invuln, Elec Armour, and Elec Affinity are all in the process of being buffed. If you want to speed up the process, come join the Golden Testers Discord: https://discord.gg/DptUBzh I think you're conflating why PvP has always been unpopular with why the PvP playerbase is currently shrinking. They're not equivalent. PvP being unpopular (~5% of the playerbase) is due to a number of things. None of them new. None of them the cause of the recent player dropoff. Take the focus of PvP changes being 8v8/Fightclub/Zone, for example. These have always been the areas the dev team focused on. So we can't use that to explain why the PvP population was larger last year than it is now. If the developmental focus has remained constant, but the PvP playerbase has shrunk, then the variable is something else. We have to look at what has changed. So, what has changed since last year? This game is old. The nostalgia factor of it being back is starting to wear off for people. (In both PvE and PvP.) Player burnout in general. Fewer people are playing CoH than before. (And as PvP is already a smaller part of the playerbase, they feel this drop in player numbers more acutely.) The population of Indomitable shrinking as PvE groups leave to Excelsior. There being no active GM/CR running PvP events. PvP changes happening too slowly keep players interested. (8v8ers are sick of fighting teams using Nature. Fightclubbers are sick of fighting Regen Brutes. Zone players are bored of Recluse's Victory.) Some PvP changes happened in a way that caused PvPers to just quit CoH outright. (Crey Pistol accolade no longer animation cancelling being the big one.) Decreased population/burnout causing the mods in the PvP discord to be around less, which allows trolls to flourish there, which makes the PvP discord unpleasant for new people. Linked to all the above - anytime anyone asks what PvP is like, everyone always replies "it's dead!". Which obviously speeds up the speed of players quitting PvP. (Why stick around if people say it's dead? Why start PvPing if it's dying?) Some of the above are causes, some of them are just accelerants. They all feed into each other and make the problem worse. This is why I suggested GM/CR-led newbie-friendly PvP events on the busier servers. As that touches several of the problem points in the above list. Your idea of turning Indomitable into an open world PvP server would actually make the current problem worse. It would just cause an exodus of all the PvE groups, which would cause even fewer PvP players to stick around. (Plus you'd essentially turn every PvP lobby, such as the area by the monkey cages in Pocket D, into a gankfest. It would be impossible to organise events on.)

It was your comment that made me mention it! I remember Faultline said a year or so ago that free PvP-locked IOs was something he'd be interested in looking at. But I'm sure there's a long list of things that also applies to. I think a lot of casual players like the idea of having a second build for PvP. (Even if they only PvP once in a blue moon.) So removing the influence requirement would be great for them. It would obviously help hardcore PvPer types too, who don't really want to spend time farming/playing the market. I think as long as the vendor explains to players that what they're about to buy only works in PvP environments, it should be fine. I suggested we run events for noobs. That's not the same as calling people noobs. (Although, admittedly "beginners" or "casuals" might have been a better word to use.) But yes, I completely agree. Boosting up underperforming ATs and underperforming powersets would be good for PvP. That's a long slow process though. (And is currently taking place on the Golden Testers Discord.) One of the things I've been pushing for is buffs to underperforming melee sets. That's more of a Step 4 kinda thing, though.

It's important to point out that the PvP population is decreasing though. Most MMORPGs that aren't pvp-focused, tend to have a ~5% of the population that are active PvPers. When I checked last year. Homecoming was around ~4-5% I just checked now... And now it's down to 2.4%. I think something does need to be done. Nothing as drastic as OP suggested. But the three obvious ideas: -Noob-friendly events on the busiest servers (not Indomitable) hosted by the official Homecoming PvP GMs and CRs. (Advertised on the forums and in-game.) -PvP versions of every IO in the game, which can be purchased for free, and that only work in PvP. -Updated guides from veteran players. These three things would get a lot more new players interested in PvP.

I think the last sentence in your post here is the key to our disconnect, here. Especially "would otherwise be spent on". The devs are volunteers who work as much/as little as they like, on whatever they want. Therefore, time not spent on PvP isn't automatically time spent on PvE. It's not an equivalent cost. (It would be if they were an organisation with a set number of hours to fill per week. But that's not what they are - they're a bunch of individuals doing whatever they want. So individual motivation is what determines things, not collective pragmatism.) Case in point: last year Faultline jumped on the PvP discord to chat to a bunch of us because he wanted to make some PvP changes. He spent most of the night doing it, and we got a bunch of awesome, small, PvP tweaks. His motivation for doing this? A bunch of PvEers had repeatedly claimed the /enterbasefrompasscode removal was a PvP change, and were critical of it. Faultline thought "well if I'm going to get blamed for PvP changes, I might as well make some!" In that instance, if Faultline hadn't made those PvP changes...would he have otherwise spent his evening making PvE changes, instead? Of course not. The motivation to do so wasn't there. Because that's what this comes down to, the individual motivation of each dev to work on whatever they feel like. Another example - let's assume the dev team lose all semblance of rational thought and ask me to be the PvP dev. Let's say I spend a month tweaking PvP powers, introducing new maps, re-adding in base raids, etc. That's a huge amount of time spent, right? If I wasn't doing that, would I otherwise be spending my time tweaking PvE powers, introducing new AE maps, adding in new items for base builders, and other PvE changes? Hell no. That's not my area of interest. And if this is a hobby I do in my spare time, I focus on the bits I like and ignore the rest. This is why I always get a bit O_o whenever people accuse the devs of "wasting their time". Comments like that fundamentally misunderstand the power dynamic of the player-dev relationship. We are playing in their hobbyspace. They're gracious hosts, but we shouldn't be commenting on what they decide to spend their time on.

It's not quite that straight forward. Plenty of Scrapper powers (including those I listed in my post, such as Invincibility, Against All Odds, and Entropic Aura) are all taunt auras. So it could just as easily be the case that Evasion is missing a taunt aura component. Here's Entropic Aura on Scrappers: Here's Evasion on Scrappers: Here's Invincibility on Scrappers: As you can see, it's a little all over the place about which powers get what. Invincibility gets the Child Effects, Entropic Aura gets the Child Effects AND the taunt proc, and Evasion gets...nothing. Whether SR needs a taunt adding, or Invuln/EA/shield/etc need taunt removing, is something for the devs to figure out. For reference, here's a list of Scrapper powers with taunt auras: Bio/Evolving Armor Invuln/Invincibility EA/Entropic Aura Rad/Beta Decay Shield/Against All Odds Willpower/Rise To The Challenge They are all 13.6s duration. With the exception of Rise To The Challenge which is 1.25s duration, and Entropic Aura which is 2.25s duration. (Although this doesn't matter so much, as Entropic Aura ALSO has the taunt proc aura, and that lasts 13.6s.) What needs to happen is one of two things: Removing all taunt auras from the above listed scrapper powers. Standardising the taunt duration in the above listed scrapper powers, removing the taunt proc from Scrapper Entropic Aura, and then adding taunt auras to Scrapper Dark, Elec, Fire, Ice, Ninjitsu, Regen, and SR. (Important note - Scrapper Ice will probably need TWO taunt auras adding if this is the approach taken. As currently the tanker/brute versions of Ice Armour have taunt auras in both Icicles and Chilling Embrace.)

Actually that's not what is happening here. Evasion on scrappers is missing these child effects that are present in equivalent powers in other sets (Invincibility in Invuln, Against All Odds in Shield, Entropic Shield in EA, etc) This is one thing which can cause a power to work as a taunt aura. And it's also missing these proc auras, which also act as taunt auras when placed into powers: Tank Version: Brute version: As long as a power has one of the above things I just screencapped, it should taunt. If a power only has the child effects, you don't get any text in your combat log when you taunt the enemies. Invincibility on Scrappers is an example of a taunt aura that just uses the child effects. Check the pic below to see it in action. (See how the hellion just attacks, and there's no mention of taunting, even though taunting is happening.) If you have the proc aura versions of a taunt aura, however, your combat log does tell you the taunt aura is active. (Pic below is my Invuln brute running Invincibility.) ...what's weird, and something I only just noticed, is that some of the Scrapper sets seem to have the brute proc aura in them. Here's a pic of my EA scrapper running Entropic Aura: The game should not be telling me my scrapper is taunting mobs with fury. So yeah...taunt auras probably need a pass to clean up some of this and to make sure the right powersets are taunting on the right ATs. (cc @Bopper) Because right now, you have, for example, Invincibility (invuln) taunting on Brutes, Tanks, and Scrappers, but Evasion (SR) only taunting on Brutes and Tanks. There needs to be consistency between ATs. (IMO scrappers should probably have it removed, they're a DPS class, not a tank class.) And regardless of what is changed, the combat log should not be telling me my scrapper is using fury to taunt enemies.

@Bill Z BubbaEvasion on tanks taunts just fine on tanks in PvP with the gauntlet proc aura: And in PvE: (those mobs ignored me until I turned on Evasion)

The devs are volunteer hobbyists with no set amount of working hours per week. This isn't work to them, it's play. Because of this, the "opportunity cost" of each change made to the game is not equal, because the dev team are volunteers who put in as many hours as they feel like, on whatever aspect of the game they feel like. If a dev spends a week making PvP tweaks, that's not a week that would otherwise have been spent on buffing elec blast/AR/mercs/etc. That could have been a week that they would have otherwise just spent playing Minecraft, or watching Youtube, or reading, or chilling with friends. Because, again, this is a hobby they do in their spare time. It's not a job where they have a definitive number of hours to fill. They don't answer to us.

Restricting what bases are allowed to have PvP switched on is the wrong approach. The criteria you listed here would disqualify the vast majority of bases from having PvP enabled in them. That is the opposite of what we want. What we want is base builders being given access to a command, or some form of item they can place in their base perhaps, which allows them to manually switch PvP on in bases they own. Players then have a sandbox environment within which they can do what they want. You can have competitive players designing maps that are balanced, but you can also have story-driven players using cool looking maps for RPVP scenes that don't care in the slightest about fairness.

Yeah Faultline was using it to turn on PvP in bases on Brainstorm last year when we first tested it. So it is doable. Disclaimer: Doable =/= easy to implement for players

I'd be up for it. But I don't think the GMs are looking to bring on anyone to help run PvP stuff right now. While I agree that an open-world PvP server is a nonstarter. It's worth pointing out that you're not a customer. You don't get a say in what your donations are spent on. Giving players the options to "toggle" pvp on/off in their bases would be good, though. (And something that is currently possible with the existing tech, but just restricted to a GM command.)

A better idea would be having dedicated PvP CRs/GMs who actively promote and run Official Homecoming PvP events for the PvP community. Right now, no-one is doing it. (Kudos to GM Smalls for helping out player-run events, though! )

Thank you for taking the time to post these numbers.

Market Crash ITF Apex/Tin Mage Unique fights. All relatively short. All have minimal bloat.

Most players tend to stand still when fighting enemies. It's rare to see people use combat jumping + WASD to joust all over the place in PvE.

It's got the entire windy corridor leading up to it, so it's not just the one room. Will be posting vids with/without lore when I run it. RL got me busy atm.