America's Angel

July 26, 2021

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

July 25, 2021

3 hours ago, th0ughtGun said:

Glad to see you finally admit there is a problem! 😁

Also, if we are being honest here, endurance drain is very niche in PvP, most builds are loading up on damage. I double checked dozens of PvP builds to confirm this. Damage procs are king there too (with regards to attacks).

The only time I’ve seen Tempest as somewhat useful is if you are doubling down on endurance drain on an elec toon of some kind, most likely a Defender/Corruptor/Controller/Sentinel. Pair it with preemptive interface, and some heavy endurance mod and you have a decent sapper, even in PvE. The problem is that it usually takes a ton of commitment to accomplish and you end up losing out on damage and damage is king. Your team has usually mopped the floor with the enemy before you can sap them. For Tempest to be more useful it’s effects would need to me on par with damage procs in speed, IMO.

I can appreciate your not wanting to mess up PvP, that seems to be one of your favorite way to play the game, and you are fighting valiantly to keep things the way they are with regards to procs. But you have to acknowledge that "damage is king" is the problem. And it is the problem in PvP too, maybe less so than PvE but still it is king. PvP builds are definitely more interesting than PvE builds, I will give you that. But THAT is the problem, PvE doesn't really have the same build diversity as PvP. It has the illusion of build diversity. Outside of a few niche builds that only work on a few powersets, most players build for a couple damage procs or -res procs per attack (depending on the powerset). Why? Because overall that is the ideal way to build your toon to be competitive in both solo and team play. I would like to see more proc options that make the player really think about what they want to do. More -regen, -recharge, -HP, -tohit, etc that can be added to certain attacks. While that wont fix everyone's obsession with clear speed, if you do it right, you can create that true build diversity that everyone here seems to care so much about.

I think we can agree that maybe a flat nerf to damage procs isn't the answer. But right now, say you are a corruptor, if you have the option to add about 40 DPA (with a damage proc) to an attack or a 5% self heal, c'mon. Most people are going to take that 40 DPA. HOWEVER, if you make the decision more like 40 DPA or 15% self heal (just an example not saying it should be 15%) well now that decision is a little more interesting. Or what about 40 DPA vs -50% regen for 15 seconds? May not be as great against minions/leuts/bosses but against AV's and GM's that would be interesting! Especially if it stacked with other powers and you build around it. Those are the kinds of decisions I would like to see players make, instead of 90% of the time: "more damage = more better!"

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.

July 25, 2021

15 hours ago, WhiteGuardian said:

No joke i have been strugglign with life alot the last 2 years and the fact i have come across this is amazing.

Hello all and thank you - downloading it now!!!!

Welcome home :)

July 25, 2021

6 hours ago, Player-1 said:

Perfect, thank you and @skoryy for providing context!

So, the goal with having these on the table is to get a feel for what "procs" if any are actually an issue, good or bad. What could be an issue is looking at certain categories where there are a plethora of certain options (Holds and Damage) while others are not as lucky (Fear). An other could be certain powers being able to stack up on a lot of damage procs in particular, another with how certain procs "feed" into other procs, and so on.

In terms of the last question, we do and we don't at the same time. In the context of what was mentioned above, there are so many variables to look at when considering what exactly the "issue" is, that we must first figure out what if anything is wrong specifically else we would go in circles. If we decide "X" is a problem with procs, it can have wide-spread consequences that needs further changes to accommodate a variety of things that "relied on X", and so on.

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.

6 hours ago, Brutal Justice said:

I’ve been anxiously waiting for the non softcapped times!

32 minutes ago, Player-1 said:

This right here is why I had asked earlier 😉

On the whole, a goal is definitely to allow for variety with the IO system as that is a very fun part of the game. If there is something that is messing with that goal then it will be on our radar.

Something that has had a little bit of focus here are the "bad" procs. The Tempest: Chance of End Drain one was brought up a few times as something that would go against the goal above as its poor performance in relation to other options effectively takes it away as a choice instead of adding to the variety of fun options. Looking at it this way, do you ever find yourselves as players going after certain procs (damage, etc) more due to other options not being as attractive rather than the ones you choose being good?

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.

July 24, 2021

Spent this afternoon running a few more tests with this:

On 7/10/2021 at 4:29 PM, America's Angel said:

Have been playing around with a rad/dev blaster on beta.

Have been throwing it up against +4/8 Rikti in a custom AE mission (Tyrant throne-room map) with the following builds:

Softcapped with no procs

Softcapped with 3xST attacks filled with -res and dam procs

Softcapped with 3xAoE attacks filled with -res and dam procs

No insps. No incarnates.

So far, there's no significant clearspeed between the first two. The last one (AoE procs) was faster.

I did an extra run with the AoE proc build with T4 incarnates slotted just for fun, and everything just melted. I didn't even need to use WASD and spacebar. I just spammed my powers and everything died. Incarnates made such a huge difference. I was genuinely shocked.

The DPS jump from the level shift, Judgement (ion), Hybrid (assault doublehit), Interface (degen 25 -heal) , and alpha (musculature 45) is insane. The survivability jump from the level shift and Destiny (Clarion 2m) was insane. When I used Lore (Banished Pantheon untouchable), the spawns pretty much just instantly died.

Haven't tested the first two builds with incarnates yet. Be interesting to see how they compare.

Next stuff I'm going to test:

Softcapped with no procs + incarnates

Softcapped with 3xST attacks filled with -res and dam procs + incarnates

All attacks procc'd out. As much +def as possible, but likely not softcapped.

All attacks procc'd out. As much +def as possible, but likely not softcapped.+ incarnates

All attacks procc'd out. As much +def as possible, but likely not softcapped. + incarnates + Inspirations

I should probably switch to charged armour for the last three, but I'll keep Scorpion Shield just for consistency in testing.

Hopefully this will help give some perspective of how procs intersect with the various OP elements in the game. And allow us to determine whether procs are overtuned, whether procs are undertuned, or whether procs seem overtuned only when paired specific things. (Incarnates/Inspirations being the two I want to test the most.)

Once I've played around a bit more & fine-tuned, I'll post up the mids files for the builds, the # of the AE map, and videos of each of the runs.

My hope with this is to create a framework that others can use to test different powersets. Rad/dev should overperform with procs. (This is why I picked it- the primary can slot all the -res procs, a multitude of damage procs, and the secondary has targeting drone it it so with that + tactics I don't have to slot for acc.)

It's not a perfect test by any stretch of the imagination. And it cannot be applied outside of fighting Rikti, with a rad/dev blaster, with a specific build. But hopefully it will show us a pattern that we can then try and replicate elsewhere, with different sets, with different builds, versus different enemies.

Had some interesting findings. Will share once the videos are uploaded.

July 24, 2021

1 hour ago, Hew said:

No. It was a request for the players to state their opinion on what is bad, and what is good. You would have to be a blindfolded horse living in the marianas trench to not notice procs are far in excess of expected performance.

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.

July 24, 2021

12 hours ago, Player-1 said:

Something that would be helpful to such a discussion would be actually sorting through all the "procs" and categorizing them and what they do to shed light on what is actually going on. It could be something as simple as:

Category Set Proc / Bonus
Accurate Healing Theft of Essence Chance of +End
Accurate Healing Touch of the Nictus Chance of Negative energy damage
Def Debuff Touch of Lady Grey Chance of Negative energy damage
Def Debuff Achilles' Heel Chance of -Res
And so on...

Getting a visual could allow better discourse on whatever "problems" there may be instead of dancing around "certain procs" are problematic 🙂

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?

July 23, 2021

AH:

/macro_image Teleportation_Wentworths "Wentworths" "ah"

AE:

/macro_image Architect_Accolade_Power "AE" "architect"

Arena:

/macro_image "GenericPower_AutoOverlay" "Arena" "arenalist"

July 22, 2021

8 minutes ago, Llewellyn Blackwell said:

So tapping in my memory of the long long ago in the way back, I suddenly recalled short lived MMO and one of its more unique charms. Some here may have played or heard of the Matrix MMO, and yes it had a hello kitty of a lot of issues. Yet it had one thing that I have seen basically never in MMO, that some of the conversation in this thread kept stirring up.

And that was that it had a group of always online live in game GMs in the form of iconic characters from the films. These GMs basically acted as real time admin/NPC directors for events they could trigger. Think in CoH here the GMs being made in the image of the iconic heroes, and having in game hang out spots players could reliably find them at for advice and help.

If we did have that kind of active in game team here, I think we could without a lot of other tweaking, and an understanding that some pvp can turn into out right grief and harassment even if it began as mutual fun and that the GMs would need to be ready and willing to stop if it was clearly causing a players play time to turn negative.

Some fun things we might be able to see a GM do( total spit balling no idea if it can actually be done with the code) could be a GM having the power to turn a player into a war wolf, with all of its abilities and flagged as a mob. Some kind of random mind control confusion effect causing mass chaos etc. These kind of random unexpected every fight or flee type GM caused pvp chaos events could be a lot of fun for some at least.

You see for me PVP should be about creating a more immersive game and player experience first and foremost. If it cant do that, if it cant feel like its part of a characters actual life in however it gets adjusted and adapted for the modern community here, then I at least wont likely be interested in it. And as I have said I am not some oh PVP is evil type of MMO gamer, I enjoy PVP when it feels like both sides have a real chance of killing the other. I rather prefer quick and dead scenerios and frankly feel it is the survival ATs that need the biggest nerf in PVP. I do not think a player should ever be able to tank another players damage in any meaningful way. But then again I am the guy who as a teenager played 007 Golden Eye on the N64 on 1 shot kill dif so I could not ever allow myself to be hit,and could never afford to miss that first shot with my PPK when i went around a corner and ducked and put a roung in my opponents head as their round flew over mine.

Ultimately though due to the nature of ATs I really dont know if any form of real parity can be achieved. Trollers want to troll, tankers want to tank, and blasters will want to blast foes to ash in moments. And none of these 3 play styles interests tend to align well in PVP wants ime.

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?

July 22, 2021

1 hour ago, Mezmera said:

I think some problem can be attributed to jump teams and fite clubbers having such sway that they get something like a dark control hold nerfed because it lasts a bit too long.

Like, okay so you want to nerf a hold on a control character that's behaving a bit too well because it holds players to get spiked long enough to get killed, but you're not going to look at maybe why so many damage procs detonating at once may be a problem? That some characters have been revamped a bit too well? No, it's the dark hold that needs to be nerfed.

It's not a long slow process. Just don't nerf overperforming things on disadvantaged AT's like TK (doms/trollers), melee stuns, dark holds, etc. Or make a new meta to see how the other side likes it, dial up the control of actual control characters to last twice as long as they currently do.

The placate proc has been a problem in psi blasters since psi blasters were created and there hasn't been a fix on that, but a hold lasting a second or two longer gets fixed quick.

"Noobs" have good ideas of what they'd like to see too for the time they endeavor to spend in the game as well. If one area is just going to stay broken, so be it, there's other things to do in the game.

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

1 hour ago, Illy said:

Continue developing pvp around the interests of private, arranged fight clubs and severely doctored arena matches, and you will see that 2.4% sink to 1.2% in no time flat.

No one who is interested in pvp but has never gotten their feet wet wants to awkwardly elbow their way into these insular and idiosyncratic cliques. But that's the only option they're given if they want to start pvping-- learn how to adhere to a strictly enforced doctrine of self-nerfing and arbitrary archetype bans.

I'm telling you this from the outside looking in, its a cancerous scenario, and the un-initiated don't want anything to do with it. We're all too old now to show up for try-outs in some video game. That's why I suggested bringing the pvp to the noobs instead by introducing some form of world pvp, even if its just the option to flag yourself for pvp. Zone and world pvp allows them to play at their own place, their own way, with whatever powerset they choose, and with whoever they want. Its way more friendly to the larger population of CoH than sweaty arena matches.

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.)

July 22, 2021

11 minutes ago, Greycat said:

I'd say that was a radical idea, if not for the "free accolades that only work in PVP" that already exist. And it would very directly and decisively knock down one of the things I mentioned as a barrier to entry (having gone from "everyone's using SOs" to the current setup where, yes, a build *is* important.)

No, it wouldn't completely throw the door open to where we'd see a giant chunk of people in zone (or arena) events - but it'd help. Or at least have people feel like staying around to learn is *worthwhile.*

... You'd just have to teach them how to use/access a second or third build. ;) About the only thing I'd say to go along *with* this is a popup or something to warn someone going from a PVP to PVE environment that "Reminder: You are currently using PVP-only IOs that will not work in PVE content!" But that isn't a huge deal (unless it's their only build, somehow - like they respecced instead of using a secondary build.)

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.

2 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

I liked the intent of the last official event. I'm no noob though, and assuming someone is such won't attract people to your side.

Yes someone coming into the current mess might not be aware of the meta blaster/defender w/proc'd holds, but it doesn't mean they are new to coh pvp, maybe they just don't like being boxed into playing certain characters to be able to compete, no matter how good they can train to be.

You may get more people to play it and keep interest if their favorite AT felt a bit more viable. Since there's a few things easily identified as OP why not balance the other side to compensate. Make some OP things that corruptors, doms, controllers and whoever else can leverage against the meta if your not going to fix the meta.

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.

July 22, 2021

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.

July 22, 2021

On 7/21/2021 at 1:28 AM, SwitchFade said:

You're inferring I think they do answer to us, I was very explicit in stating that my contribution is exactly that, not a salary or a contingency. A decision to update a part of the game is fine, I was clear in saying that if major resources were dedicated, that comes at a cost, one which I do not condone and would be unwilling to contribute to, and that is 100% valid. Time spent doing that, when it would otherwise be spent on anything else, including PvE, is a cost.

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.

July 21, 2021

23 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

Evasion is supposed to only be flagged for taunt on Brutes/Tankers because of their aggro control role. You’re absolutely right that it shouldn’t be telling you that.

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.)

July 21, 2021

1 hour ago, Myrmidon said:

They likely never added the info to the power description, so it was left out in other data pages. It’s there, no worries.

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.

July 21, 2021

@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)

July 21, 2021

10 hours ago, SwitchFade said:

Stating that considering pvp niche in this game, and following that with a statement that server population was low, is a direct contradiction. PvP was always niche in CoH, proven by actual data that showed the miniscule pvp population, even on live, when compared to PvE.

Regardless of feelings nothing Is a simple fix, it would require considerable resources, which has an opportunity cost.

Contributions are not equivalent to a tax, should pvp become a significant resource allocation, I'll cease contributing. Funny how that works, eh? More whimsical is the point that if pvp should become world "flagged" and I had no choice but to witness it, I would quit and move on.

And no, you couldn't have my stuff 😜

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.

July 20, 2021

52 minutes ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

I think an interesting, if perhaps convoluted solution, to the issue with Bases being built in such a way as to give one side a distinct advantage is that:

A) No-clipping during building is disabled, so there is no building above or below the map.
B) No internal teleporters.

C) (and this is the kicker) the Base Builder must be able to successfully raid their own base within 1/4 of the normal allotted time for a Base Raid. If the person who built the base can't do it under test conditions, then the base isn't available for PvP until reconfigured.

But also they need to find a way to fix Pet pathing in bases, or it's just a non-starter entirely.

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.

July 20, 2021

46 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

There is a GM command that sets all targets to enemies that works on NPCs, though I can't vouch for whether it works on players too. The concern I would have is with how the game applies PvP specific power attributes and DR to players in PvE contexts.

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

July 19, 2021

5 hours ago, Myrmidon said:

I nominate @America's Angel for the task.

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.

14 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

Ok. Who pays for it? I'm not. Not a cent of my contribution should go to it.

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.)

July 19, 2021

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! )

July 18, 2021

On 7/14/2021 at 5:16 PM, Olerus said:

One small note. I've seen some suggest that Defenders have overwhelming defenses while still achieving blaster levels of DPS. The former can be true; Defenders can fairly easily reach the softcap. Some sets can even do so while maxing S/L resistance and getting a smattering of other resistances. The latter isn't really true.

The single best Defender blast is Char from the APP, followed by Dominate, followed by Blaze, followed by a few Ice Blast powers. Slotted with two (2) 4.5 PPM purple procs and four (4) 3.5 PPM regular procs, Char has a DPA of 409 when use solo (Musculature and Vigilance providing +75% damage). This is good, but is also means that other powers will not have said purple procs. I have an extremely high DPS defender (Storm/Ice/Psy) as a concept, using a chain of:

Dominate > Bitter Ice Blast > Ice Blast > Bitter Freeze Ray

This deals 1556 damage in 6.6 seconds, or something close to 236 DPS. I'm fairly certain this is close to maxing out a defender's DPS from an attack chain alone. Now against a Pylon, said Defender would have Freezing Rain, Tornado, and 2x Lightning Storm also contributing -resistance and damage and would be cycling Aim every 35 seconds. Cycling in these powers reduces the base DPS to around 200, but adds in roughly 40% -resistance. Aim adds roughly 15 damage back, Tornado another 15, and 2x Lightning Storm roughly 43. So altogether with setup and against a static target said completely focused defender can reach around 382.

How does that compare to Blasters? Well, a defensively specced blaster can easily clear 550 DPS. Virtually every blaster combination can reach the same level of damage output as the defender, without needing to setup up 3 pets. And the defender isn't reaching 90% either. Even a clunky set like Assault Rifle is going to pump out 300-350 DPS from its attack chain alone (especially mixing in melee). Even with procs helping to bridge the gap, it is hard to overcome the nearly double base damage. Defenders can match non-IOed blaster damage, but they will only come up to around 66-75% of blaster damage at equal investment levels.

Blasters aren't even that much less defensive. They have higher base HP and regeneration, better ATOs, and can just as reasonably reach softcap defenses. My main blaster is a Water/Time with 45% ranged defense, 1527 Max HP, and resistance splits of 60 SL, 50 Fire, 40 Cold, 17 Energy, 10 negative, 10 Psy/Toxic. My defender is also a hover + ranged defense character, and has less resistances around the board with 400 less health.

The point of this is just to give some harder numbers to the discussion. That's all.

Thank you for taking the time to post these numbers.

July 16, 2021

Market Crash

ITF

Apex/Tin Mage

Unique fights. All relatively short. All have minimal bloat.

July 15, 2021

22 hours ago, SaintD said:

Are you seriously telling me that large numbers of people are playing this game without a WASD setup with their mouse? They must be moving around like a Mark I tank in a swamp.

Completely ignoring anyone complaining about cones ever again in 5...4...3...2...1. Aaaaand they're gone.

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.

July 15, 2021

10 hours ago, skoryy said:

One room map with Hybrid and Lore fired off is kinda atypical in my book, though. Especially given Lore's insane DPS boost and recharge. How's it feel without Lore?

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.

Category	Set	Proc / Bonus
Accurate Healing	Theft of Essence	Chance of +End
Accurate Healing	Touch of the Nictus	Chance of Negative energy damage
Def Debuff	Touch of Lady Grey	Chance of Negative energy damage
Def Debuff	Achilles' Heel	Chance of -Res
		And so on...

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