SwitchFade
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Posts posted by SwitchFade
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I would be in favor of a slight bump up.
2x is reasonable, as I often have situations where I want to kill a mission. Perhaps with it limiting rewards? Not usable on reward merit missions?
Because Dev time is limited, I would relegate this to low priority, though.
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The short version is -and I'm sure people who just want it changed because they want it will be here soon- that aggro cap and the cap on aoe mob Target cannot be increased simply.
There are a whole host of other factors to consider when changing these. Practically speaking, an increase of PERHAPS 2-4 individual foes is possible without any dramatic rebalancing, but beyond that, it would require significant work. And really, it's not maddening or frustrating, it just requires tactical application of game play.
So, unfortunately I vote no on this, as it would require significant time and resources to even begin testing. On live this spent years in balance, rebalance and testing, and that was with millions of dollars on hand and a large team that were receiving paychecks.
So basically you set up a straw man to argue against this suggestion. The initial suggestion does not (and in fact specifically says not to) propose increasing the AOE caps. It only proposes increasing the aggro cap. That is a completely different kettle of fish, and in terms of balance, really isn't that big a deal IMO.
Right now for aggro control and tanker can easily get exceeded, and thus you might need a second tank on a team, but only sometimes.
Now if you think that aggro control is a big balance issue, then argue that and don't bring up AOE target caps, as that is a completely separate issue.
Personally I think this suggestion would be a good thing for a couple of reasons. First off, as the OP says, sometimes you can't avoid getting a second group involved on a big team, and the tank then tries to grab extra aggro, but his current aggro targets then make his team start faceplanting. Increasing this number would make him much more capable of doing his job, which is simply to take a pounding for others.
The second reason is actually for those who aren't number crunchers and forum readers. There's still lots of people back to COH who have no idea there even is a aggro cap, and they do things which get teams killed because they are playing like in the early days of the game. You can easily get enemy attention without locking down aggro, and that causes a lot of needless debt when people engage thinking the tank has aggro.
To make a point as to why there's really no balance issue here, and as someone who used to herd maps into dumpsters for the nuking, it was the lack of AOE caps that make herding worth your while. As it is now with 14 at best as the AOE cap (outside of incarnate) herding is mostly just a waste of time. A team is more efficient running group to group and steamrolling.
A straw man argument is one where an individual assigns an argument to another that that other did not make, and proceeds to refute it. I did not assign an argument to the OP, I merely stated that aggro cap, or aoe target cap, cannot be changed easily, and that I would vote no.
I realize he did not discuss aoe, but the two are discussed in another thread, which was the beginning of my post. No straw man.
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Whole-heartedly agree that aggro limits, particularly for Tankers, should be upped by a factor of 2x to 3x.
This has been discussed ad-nauseum in other threads.
The short version is -and I'm sure people who just want it changed because they want it will be here soon- that aggro cap and the cap on aoe mob Target cannot be increased simply.
Eh... that's a position held just by some guy named SwitchFade, afaik.
So, unfortunately I vote no on this, as it would require significant time and resources to even begin testing. On live this spent years in balance, rebalance and testing, and that was with millions of dollars on hand and a large team that were receiving paychecks.So did Devices.
Please stop being patently disrespectful to others on the forum. I have already given evidence to clearly demonstrate reality, regardless of your desires. This is the third thread you enter with disrespectful sarcastic slight, with the only intent being to belittle.
In the future, I hope you will be able to respectfully post, and desist from condescension.
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I have no need to take time to "learn,"
Well, be that as it may, it might be helpful to consider at some point. I think we're kind of at an impasse otherwise.
I've noticed in many of your posts that you have a penchant for backhanded disrespectful comments. Please do not misquote me by snipping out a small section of a whole sentence, as you did, and create straw man arguments.
I'll ask again, please discontinue being disrespectful, as this just reenforces your general incapability to amicably coexist with other people.
In the future, I hope to see you post in a more respectful manner. In regards to your blatant misrepresentation of my sentence, we can both clearly see the meaning, and I do not engage in straw-man arguments.
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This has been discussed ad-nauseum in other threads.
The short version is -and I'm sure people who just want it changed because they want it will be here soon- that aggro cap and the cap on aoe mob Target cannot be increased simply.
There are a whole host of other factors to consider when changing these. Practically speaking, an increase of PERHAPS 2-4 individual foes is possible without any dramatic rebalancing, but beyond that, it would require significant work. And really, it's not maddening or frustrating, it just requires tactical application of game play.
So, unfortunately I vote no on this, as it would require significant time and resources to even begin testing. On live this spent years in balance, rebalance and testing, and that was with millions of dollars on hand and a large team that were receiving paychecks.
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The issue with larger characters that was discussed by the original devs on live was that they would not fit inside buildings. Now, if something has changed, this may be possible.
This was also why it was problematic to implement dramatically larger toons. I believe a Keldian Dwarf is about as big as a toon can be.
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Generally small field mice are very docile and unintrusive.
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Yall make a strong case for Kels might have to alt one, do peacekeepers get the zone teleport too, or only warshades?
Warshades only.
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Increasing aggro cap necessitates changes in mez, taunt, range, duration and other things.
well, have i got an
for you, then.I mean, I get it -- it's easy to look at a system and think it's impossible it was ever different, or ever could be different. But the game's been around for a while! If you take some time to learn about its past, you'll probably find out things you never realized.
Interesting, indeed. Having been around since issue 2 I remember tank-foolery. Can't happen now, as we have GDN, ED, Travel suppression, and a whole host of changes that dialed down tankiness... In fact I recall when unyielding rooted a toon immobile...
Then other things were tweaked based on those tweaks.
Thanks for the find memories, I have no need to take time to "learn," a as you mention concerning this subject, as I experienced, grew wiser and already know the ins-and-outs. I do hope you'll perhaps take the time to not be assumptive of my depth of knowledge concerning issues I post about? I would greatly appreciate it, and you'll note, I make no assumptions as to your prowess.
Hence, why my words of wisdom are presented in such a way that advises such changes are not simple.
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Can you not call the updates in sequential i(xx) names unless it is a significant content update? I've no particular issue with i25 being a rebirth, private streamlining issue title. However, i26 was little more than further streamlining of i25, as is the Sniper fix/update. It's still fixing the issues with i25 beta's incomplete mechanics. I'm thrilled with all of that, believe me, just don't call it "i26" or "i27". Now if a few enterprising people populated Kalisti Wharf, filled it with mobs, contacts, stories, and missions... that would be a good update to slap "i26" on. Maybe call the current streamlining work "i25.1" and "i25.2".
Just a thought. I know I'm not a coder/dev type, so I'm thrilled with all the volunteer work done by SCoRE and others, but there is something meaningful about the issue titles. They shouldn't be used and ticked up on every patch.
Thank you.
I literally chuckled out loud.
It's a free server. I think I'm completely ok with HC calling it anything they want.
Heck, call each update a variation on spreadable cheese sauce.
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I would heavily applaud getting rid of the clamp
I heavily vote to keep the clamp.
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Go Warshade.
If you be sure to make your keybinds for form switching and tray swapping properly, get ready for this...
85% resist all
2-3 blasting pets out Perma
Self end recovery and heal, every group you kill
2 build ups, so massive damage output
Tons of aoe damage both ranged and pbaoe
All your attacks slow movement and slow recharge enemies
Inherent teleport, built in teammate teleport, zone teleport
Built in invisibility with only superspeed
Mag 3 ranged cone stun
Built in flight in blaster mode
Built in tank mode with another self heal
Warshades are truly boss. Most people don't quite know how to play them, so they move to something less advanced. Make your keybinds properly, and you can simple melt foes. Blasting... Tanking... Capped resist with 3 pets out blasting with you... The list goes on and on.
Tank mage.
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Warshades...
Can replenish end nearly every group they kill
85 res to all
300% damage boost
2-3 pets out all the time
build in invisibility
A cone ranged mag 3 stun
a self Rez
a team member teleport, a zone self teleport
flight and teleport self built in
A blaster mode built in
a tank mode built in...
Warshades are dramatically powerful. They have 5 epic pools baked right in. Truly, if you make keybinds and know how to play a keldian, it's a sight to behold. They don't need epic pools... They are epic pools. I can absolutely steamroll content on my Warshade. I really don't think they need more.
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Come on everyone, I am easily one of the most vocal about fixing Rage, but the HC team isn't trying to mess with us, nor are they being "heavy handed" or anything else. They are volunteering their time and money so we can play CoH, let's not forget that.
This x 10
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Now that we're on the same page and thank you for reiterating.
If the aggro cap raising beyond a couple of enemies is too much of an issue, even the extra 4-5 enemies is still enough paired with the other change to help tankers on the road to standing out from brutes again. I'm not sure how difficult any of these changes would be to make though. Also yeah i'd never want either of my suggestions done to brutes. Brutes are in a pretty good place in my opinion. Most of this would have to be tested. A lot of what you suggested could happen could easily be undone by support sets. A tanker needing a support to full pull might not be the worst thing :P
I would totally +1 a raise in aggro cap to 21ish, for sure.
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If I can hold the aggro of 34 foes, I can render every teammate pointless. I can also herd whole maps.
Aggro evasion already makes this possible; you can't hold aggro on every mob on a map, but (with enough duration) you can Hold every mob on a map. I'd also like to point out that historically, CoH had no meaningful aggro cap until Issue 6 when it was set at 17 (down from, afaik, "float").
So, we increase mez protection, we increase taunt mag, range and duration. If we did that, I would instantly make a fire tank, max the range on taunt and be able to pull group after group from one spot, virtually, and melt everything, as my teammates play pachinko. Other AT's can farm, but this would be far superior.
This is... wrong. There's no suggestion on increasing the number of targets affected by Burn or Fiery Aura. You wouldn't be able to kill things as fast as you can taunt them -- or any faster than you already can. There's also no suggestion to increase mez protection, despite your belief it must be. Tankers are going to have to deal with that issue organically.
You're misunderstanding. Increasing aggro cap necessitates changes in mez, taunt, range, duration and other things.
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Please consider opening a Homecoming new server with an XP buff in order to accommodate for the potential influx of players who just lost their non-HC servers.
I think I needs some facts. Are you being facetious? Or am I being sarcasm pranked?
Or..... /Jranger
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You're not blasting, per see, you're cherry-pick-sniping in essence. Wait till you have so much damage, you strip aggro from tanks. Wait till you have a nuke, that is pbaoe.
At 22, you're playing vanilla. The time will come when you do so much damage, so quickly, you start to pull tons of aggro. Or you start destroying enemies so rapidly you're running ahead of the tank.
On my dual pistols/mind blaster, I have to stay basically in Melee all the time, and it's a <blast>
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Mob is a singular foe, yes.
Moving aggro cap from 17 up to 20 or 22 would not require much rework.
Moving beyond 24 would require moderate rework.
Moving to 34 would break everything, and require significant rework.
If I can hold the aggro of 34 foes, I can render every teammate pointless. I can also herd whole maps.
If I can hold 34 foes of aggro, I need double the mez, double the threat mag and duration. If you did that, the Cascade effect of how peeful I become requires a rework of everything.
If understand your point, which i think i might, you're saying their ability to just maintain aggro of anything larger than half a 8 man spawned group would need slightly more consideration than just "will tank die yes/no". I understand that point, but thats again why it would need to be tested and adjusted.
The other side of your point, which again i could be wrong still, is it trivializing teammates. This one I'm unsure about because inside aggro cap it wouldn't change much i don't think? Aside from the occasional over pull i'm unsure much would change in the terms of whos doing what on the team. The amount of extra aggro for Tankers could easily be adjusted still with other things being taken into consideration.
Essentially, you have it. The issue with raising aggro cap isn't the extra aggro, it's the domino effect.
Aggro has mag and duration, so having to manage more foe aggro means that more spillover would occur. Right now, on an 8 man team, a tank loses aggro of a few foes to high damage squishy AT's, and a good tank is watchful, taunting them back. Everyone has examples of teaming with a good tank. A bad tank, let's that aggro spill kill his teammates. Now, imagine doubling the aggro cap.
Aggro limits the amount of mez at any given time as well. If a group spawns 1-2 bosses, even if a tank accidentally pulls 2 groups, or the bosses from 2 groups, he can still usually remain unaffected by mez stacking. Double the aggro cap, and this is not the case. Everyone has had situations where groups are close together, double group aggro occurs for the team, and if the tank aurataunt can take all their attention... Mezzed and stunned. All aggro lost. Team must now contend with a tank that cannot, in the old method, hold the aggro of at least half that accidental double pull.
So now we see that if aggro cap goes up, mez protection must go up, as the tank will catch the attention of more bosses, whether he wants to or not.
Along with that, now, we must also increase taunt mag, duration and range, because those foes will be more spread out, and fringe foes will be easily aggro stripped from the tank which already happens, and it would be doubled.
So, we increase mez protection, we increase taunt mag, range and duration. If we did that, I would instantly make a fire tank, max the range on taunt and be able to pull group after group from one spot, virtually, and melt everything, as my teammates play pachinko. Other AT's can farm, but this would be far superior.
To make it worse, I would switch my travek power to teleport, and just port between groups and heard non stop.
This is not even beginning to delve into foes that spawn pets, and if I aggro cap at 34, and even 5 of them spawn pets i cant keep aggro of... Team wipe. Except for me.
Now imagine if this was also raised in a brute... They already speed clear maps. Make it twice as fast.
So the aggro cap is very intricate, and the applications are about the team. If you increase it by one, two or three foes then the likely hood of pulling too many bosses, or losing too much aggro to Squishies, or becoming a tank mage is not an issue.
Increase aggro by more than 4... Issues.
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Mob is a singular foe, yes.
Moving aggro cap from 17 up to 20 or 22 would not require much rework.
Moving beyond 24 would require moderate rework.
Moving to 34 would break everything, and require significant rework.
If I can hold the aggro of 34 foes, I can render every teammate pointless. I can also herd whole maps.
If I can hold 34 foes of aggro, I need double the mez, double the threat mag and duration. If you did that, the Cascade effect of how peeful I become requires a rework of everything.
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Unfortunately the damage has been done and people have moved away from HC because of this "fix." I know the 5 friends that left HC won't come back because they think the "devs" are a bit too heavy handed with the nerfs. I have other friends who have already deleted their SS toons and play less and less because that was their main toon. I hope in the future the devs do more testing and get more feedback on things; especially such game changing things as this "fix" was....
Man, just take it back to live. It worked for how many years there? As some on above said the current team should at least look at it on the beta server. Any way we can petition the Devs to make this happen?
That seems..... As though they cut off their noses to spite their faces.
I mean, it's one power and one set. Enjoy the rest of the game, come to the forums and make your case. I'd be willing to bet the HC team is flexible. Maybe your acquaintances are a bit.... Melodramatic?
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No touch clamp, clamp good.
Clamp fun.
Clamp necessary.
Me like clamp, me cuddle with clamp. Love clamp.
Keep clamp!
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A MOB or mob in mmo terminology is a mobile, in this case a baddie in the game.
Increasing aggro by one mob is one foe.
If a suggestion of increasing aggro cap by one "mob" in the English language, that is one entire group of mobs. That would be effectively doubling the aggro cap from 17 to 34.
This would require dramatically rebalancing much of the game, as the aggro cap and defense, resist, range, damage and power utility were all reworked together over years.
So, the suggested increasing of aggro cap in a vacuum is not something so simple.
:-\ well you learn something everyday i guess. I updated my initial post to reflect what i meant thanks for pointing it out
It would probably require a bit of testing and adjusting sure, what wouldn't? I don't think it wouldn't be "simple" though. Tanker/Brutes can reach unkillable levels as is and double up on enemies probably wouldn't change it for most IO'd characters. Naturally, we're gonna be speaking on a natural enemy scale setting and SO's as that's where the game is balanced. I don't think more enemies would be an issue at current power though, we wouldn't know for sure without testing.
The ability to kill a tank is not necessarily the issue. If you double the aggro cap, then you will increase threat to all players when the strip aggro. So this would require a rework of threat retention, by increasing a tanks threat levels. Also, now you can aggro hold double the number of mez producing bosses, which can overcome a tanks mez protection, and that has to be adjusted up. Additionally, a shield tank can now produce enough defense bonus to effectively render the team unkillable by going over the soft cap for everyone. This in turn would protect the team, due to the increased aggro the tank can hold.
Further, all I have to do now is throw three range enhances in taunt, and I can stand in one location and taunt baddies into melee from far away, as 1 of the 34 die off.
Then, a fire tank can herd and kill indiscriminately. And we end up back at issue 3 and 4, where tanks we're imbalanced.
That's not even taking into account 2 tanks on a farm map, and both running leadership.
Now magnify that by 2 brutes, at 400% damage.
Firstly, you can't take farming into account. Nerfing/buffing things around farming is pointless, people will always farm and if its stronger/weaker at the cost of regular enjoyment than you've made the wrong decision. Having 3 things killing mobs will be slower than just 1 brute in AE currently if you take the current prefered map/setup into account. What can already be finished in minutes does not need to go slightly faster at the cost of 2 extra people soaking XP.
If you're fighting an enemy group that has mez heavy bosses, pulling a bunch of them would be in error. Just because you can doesn't mean you always should. Stripping aggro from a tank who has used taunt isn't exactly easy. This change isn't going to suddenly change the map layouts or increase group sizes. You're saying all of this as if the tank being able to grab ambushes or an extra pulled mob is literally going to change everything and its almost misleading.
I feel you, but you're missing me.
Any map with 8 players produces enough mobs to make this possible. This effectively makes the other 7 players superfluous, as now a brute can mow through mobs 3 times as fast, due to how the upward changes to threat and me, would affect the game. To account for threat and mez, a whole host of changes have to be made. They're geometric.
Any group spawn with 8 players will spawn 1-2 bosses. Groups spawn on 8 man, from 9-17 mobs. Now, I can hold aggro of 4-7 bosses on a regular map, just from random boss spawn. 4-7 bosses can overcome tank mez protection. This will happen routinely. It DID happen routinely when the original devs were playing with aggro cap. It wasn't always as low as 17.
You've got to realize that doubling aggro cap has nothing to do with tank levels of res and def. It has to do with threat, mez, and other players. Make the aggro cap higher... A whole host of other adjustments.
Make those adjustments? Tanks are now supreme, and I can map herd.
Now, increase aggro cap by 1-3 mobs? That's possible. Any more than 5 and things get skewwed. More than 7, bonkers.
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A MOB or mob in mmo terminology is a mobile, in this case a baddie in the game.
Increasing aggro by one mob is one foe.
If a suggestion of increasing aggro cap by one "mob" in the English language, that is one entire group of mobs. That would be effectively doubling the aggro cap from 17 to 34.
This would require dramatically rebalancing much of the game, as the aggro cap and defense, resist, range, damage and power utility were all reworked together over years.
So, the suggested increasing of aggro cap in a vacuum is not something so simple.
:-\ well you learn something everyday i guess. I updated my initial post to reflect what i meant thanks for pointing it out
It would probably require a bit of testing and adjusting sure, what wouldn't? I don't think it wouldn't be "simple" though. Tanker/Brutes can reach unkillable levels as is and double up on enemies probably wouldn't change it for most IO'd characters. Naturally, we're gonna be speaking on a natural enemy scale setting and SO's as that's where the game is balanced. I don't think more enemies would be an issue at current power though, we wouldn't know for sure without testing.
The ability to kill a tank is not necessarily the issue. If you double the aggro cap, then you will increase threat to all players when the strip aggro. So this would require a rework of threat retention, by increasing a tanks threat levels. Also, now you can aggro hold double the number of mez producing bosses, which can overcome a tanks mez protection, and that has to be adjusted up. Additionally, a shield tank can now produce enough defense bonus to effectively render the team unkillable by going over the soft cap for everyone. This in turn would protect the team, due to the increased aggro the tank can hold.
Further, all I have to do now is throw three range enhances in taunt, and I can stand in one location and taunt baddies into melee from far away, as 1 of the 34 die off.
Then, a fire tank can herd and kill indiscriminately. And we end up back at issue 3 and 4, where tanks we're imbalanced.
That's not even taking into account 2 tanks on a farm map, and both running leadership.
Now magnify that by 2 brutes, at 400% damage.
Peacebringer's Photon Seekers
in Suggestions & Feedback
Posted
Warshade is probably my most loved AT, for the sheer power it unlocks as one becomes skilled in its use.
I mention this because I tried to love Peacebringers the same, and felt that things like Photon Seekers were somehow.... Off.
I would love to see them be utility based, so that they are the Yin to a Warshade's Yang.