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battlewraith

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Posts posted by battlewraith

  1. 11 hours ago, GM_GooglyMoogly said:

    A few points:

     

    1) One can disagree without being disagreeable.

     

    2) There is generally no need to continuously and repeatedly say the same thing.

     

    3)  MM balance is a weird thing.  A well-built level 50 MM can essentially "walk" through x8 missions solo at even level with some minor management of the pets and an occasional  heal or buff.  That same MM will struggle at *4 and even more so on incarnate or 4 star content.  I think the trick is to buff them at the highest level of difficulty without making lower levels too much of a cake "walk."   While the proposal will make MMs easier and less tedious I don't think it really does anything for them at the higher levels.  And then we'd have to come up with 2 new powers and animations to replace the upgrades and that can be incredibly difficult and time consuming to design and balance.

    (Note: #3 is just my opinion as a player and not an official HC statement.)

     

    Unless I'm misunderstanding the OP, I thought the idea was just to make the upgrades passives, not inherents. Like quickness in SR. You would still have to select that power while leveling in order to get the benefit. It's just that the upgrade would be automatically applied upon summons. 

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  2. 6 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

    The official overview of the Mastermind as quoted on the HC Wiki's Mastermind page disagrees with you.   (The team support slot redside is taken up by Corruptors.)

     

    I didn't say anything about the role of the MM. I was talking about the secondaries, which were clearly not designed with pets in mind.

    First of all many of them existed before masterminds were a thing. Secondly, all of them appear across multiple ATs. Some of which feature no pets in their primaries or secondaries.

     

    6 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

    That's because math is one of the key tools for objectively analyzing the effects of a change.  Subjective, hyperbolic, and emotional arguments are no substitute.

     

    Game design is an art, not a science. Yes, math is an important tool--but the entire point is to provide an enjoyable experience for the players. Somebody's fun hinges on a lot of subjective factors. And if it's not fun, people don't give a damn if the rationale behind it is mathematically balanced.

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  3. The secondaries are not designed to keep pets alive. They are meant to assist teams. And if I'm not mistaken, they are weaker versions of what defenders, corruptors, etc. bring to the table. So while defenders, corruptors etc. are helping teammates and blasting away at mobs, masterminds are apparently supposed to manage their pets activities, keep them alive, and be of some use to their teammates. 

     

    If the team is performing well, the MM already losing damage because of the lag of their pets arriving at where they need to be in order to do dmg. For a lot of content, they are going to be left in the dust by other ATs.

     

    If the team is having issues, then the MM may have to keep a teammate alive instead of their pets. Then they have to pay a tax on their dps while the rest of the team can keep fighting. 

    Then there's the late game content, things like the Battle Maiden fight where there are animated swords all over the place ands she's dropping large, hard hitting aoes that may be hard to handle without pets to worry about. 

     

    People seem to be viewing this as a math problem. Which I guess would be compelling if I didn't actually play the game and see reasons why these complaints don't make sense and are punitive to MMs.

    • Like 1
  4. 2 minutes ago, Rudra said:

    Then you completely missed my point.

     

    What was the point exactly? I thought the idea was to show that this proposal wasn't needed because it's so easy to keep the pets alive. 

    You demonstrated this by having "lazy time" in a relatively low level mission, where you waited between engagements for the pets to heal back up. 

    Going slowly on easy mode doesn't really support any kind of point as far as I can tell. 

    8 minutes ago, Rudra said:

    I can drown them in a sea of pets so much faster

     

    How much faster? How does this make any sense?

    If you're able to keep your pets alive--then you'll have the maximum number of pets available throughout the fight. This proposal doesn't give you more pets.

    If all the tips for targeting, upgrading, healing your pets that have been mentioned here are legitimate, then this proposal is basically about QOL, not performance. 

    If the fight is going poorly, and your upgraded pets are getting wiped--then having them upgraded automatically on resummon is not going to let you drown the AV in pets unless the recharge on the summons is nil. 

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  5. 59 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

    Your personal preferences among those playstyles or inability to master them is not a reason to change the fundamental gameplay loop of the archetype.

     

    I played a //ff controller back at release. I had to refresh bubbles on people periodically, or just decide I wasn't going to be bothered. This was not a difficult thing to "master." It was just irritating. And eventually they changed it so that it hit everything at once--thus changing the game loop of the set. As far as I can tell, those controllers and defenders affected did not suddenly become significantly more powerful or valued on team. They just became funner to play.

     

    People keep saying "well if you know what you're doing, the pets shouldn't be getting killed."

    Okay, well if it's the norm that the pets stay alive--if that's the standard expectation--then objecting to this proposal makes no sense because you're not going to see a big increase in dps if the upgrades became passive. The primary source of damage, the pets, are assumed to be a constant in either case. So if it's that trivial to keep them alive, this doesn't constitute a major change in gameloop. 

     

    If on the other hand, it is actually normal for the pets to die in the course of something approaching a meaningfully challenging mission, then this proposal is a dps increase. But that increase is only to the floor of what people here seem to be expecting as standard dps. It does not constitute an increase to the ceiling to what the AT is already accomplishing. 

    • Like 2
  6. 18 minutes ago, Col. Kernel said:

    I'll believe you when I see the video of that run.

    I'm curious as to whether dark servant was part of the equation. The ninjas + a powerful pet from the only secondary I think that offers a pet.

    Yeah I could see that rolling through low difficulty settings.

  7. There's a very simple solution for a number of these complaints. One that is referenced in places like the sticky for the suggestions forum. 

     

    If you don't like a thread, stop replying. Let it drop off the page. 

     

    In my experience, the people that complain the most about divisiveness are the ones you can expect to engage with it. They can't simply walk away. 

    And it looks like, from some of these comments, they want the moderators to step in and lock things down so that they don't have to.

    • Like 1
  8. 8 hours ago, biostem said:

    You need to look at what a person is asking, beyond the literal words they use.  Why even ask if the powers should/would/could hit other targets?  No other ST power hits targets between the caster and said target.  Any powers wishing to do so would be built as a narrow cone, a la dual pistol's piercing rounds...

     

    EDIT:  When someone says "With all due respect", do you think they are actually being respectful?  When someone starts a sentence with "In all honesty", do you think there's no possibility of deception?

     

    You're supposed to assume good will. What you're advocating is the opposite. 

     

    Edit: You're basically calling him out as a liar because you can't relate to someone just wanting to have a conversation. Believe it or not, sometimes people do just want to talk about ideas. If it turns into a suggestion, you can disparage them then (why do players always want realism in a way that benefits them sounds like a diss anyway). 

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  9. 2 minutes ago, biostem said:

     

     

     Clearly the implication is there.  We don't operate in an environment where, unless you explicitly ask for a thing, then no such request was made...

     

    I'm not a mind reader. He said this:

     

    On 3/15/2025 at 5:04 PM, Uun said:

    This is more of a conceptual question than a suggestion that either of these need to be buffed.

     

    So I don't know why I'm supposed to assume this is a request. 

  10. 45 minutes ago, biostem said:

    It's funny how such requests for "realism" generally only go in the direction of buffing the player character - I don't see many requests for a feature where you have to hope you can make it to a hospital before bleeding out from a single gunshot, if not just being killed outright...

     

    Where is the request? I thought he was just wondering how it would work. 

  11. I haven't had a problem with the moderation. I think it's been reasonable for as long as I've been around, though I don't spend as much time here as other people.

     

    I guess my feedback is this: there is a community here in the sense that there is an aggregate of people who post on the forums. Within that group are an assortment of people with different interests, personalities, experiences with the game and so on. A lot of the people who are heavily invested in the game seem to crave social cohesion. They want a community in the sense of wanting a group of like-minded individuals. This is not a surprise for a game this old. But it's not good imo, either for the forums or the game. 

     

    Be impartial. Don't gatekeep, Be tolerant, and resist the calls to police the crap out of this place. It would only make things worse. 

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  12. 23 minutes ago, Uun said:

    As I said at the top, I'm not looking for changes. Tri-Cannon works really well and allowing it to hit multiple targets would doubtless come with a reduction in damage. It's currently one of the best controller pets and I don't want to mess with it.

     

    This was more of a thought exercise - if I've got 3 gatling guns (mounted to a hovering turret) each firing multiple rounds per second, what are the chances that nothing aside from the target is going to be hit?

     The chance is zero. They're hovering in the air, The recoil would be pushing them all over.

     

    2 minutes ago, mistagoat said:

    I think I agree. Seems hard to believe that it would be so pinpoint accurate with all that recoil on a floating platform. The tech keeping that thing afloat would have to be the most advanced tech in all of Paragon! I suppose that's possible but seems unlikely.

     

    A cone would probably be the real world outcome of mounting miniguns on a floating platform that follows you and attacks your enemies.

     

    (also not interested in any changes to the power in game, just exploring the thought)

     

    Which begs the question, if they have such advanced tech, why are they using machine guns?

  13. 4 hours ago, Rudra said:

    And yet yesterday, I spent a good portion of the day on my Ninja/Dark MM doing the Organ Grinders Flashback doing exactly that at +0/x3. I entered the missions, turned on Walk, and walked through the missions. Only on 1 mission did I have to turn off Walk and support my pets because I got jumped by 3 groups of Rikti on a sewer map.

     

    If your team stays together in the crates/containers part of the mission? You most definitely can keep your pets alive. If they scatter? Then let them. Do what you can or just go prepare for Marauder's arrival.

    I think most people aspire to to more than 0/+3. That's not much of a flex. I also don't think I've been on Lambda where people didn't scatter. I think that's the norm.

  14. 28 minutes ago, Excraft said:

    I don't need to imagine the PL options being gone.  It already exists. 

     

    Woooosh. Another wall of text where you completely and dogmatically miss the point.

     

    This is your vision of the game. It's more or less an exposition of how you view things, which you then extend to the playerbase as a whole to try to make it sound more legitimate. 

    You talk about people not wanting an I win button and people wanting to feel like they've earned something (hilariously this is in regard to lowbie content which is largely skipped over).

     

    For the majority of the lifespan of the game I was a pvper. I just logged in and played the game with my friends. We got jack shit in terms of rewards and those things that were pvp centered are now easily available to people who never need to pvp to get them. The question about chess is absolutely pertinent to this discussion. The reason you play chess is not about the rewards--it's because you enjoy it. Same with pvp. Same with throwing a frisbee.

     

    Your value system vis a vis this game is so fixated on grind that you can't see past it. That is your hang up that you're trying to saddle on me. You don't like it, you don't think it adds anything-cool. You've already stated your preference. But your arguments, that you keep rehashing here are silly.

     

    "Oh no. This option will make people stronger at the most fleeting of level ranges! And then they will be weaker at later level ranges! And if people actually have fun with this--it could destroy everything that we hold dear!"

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  15. 35 minutes ago, Excraft said:

     

    Given that they've said the very first thing they did when the joined HC was to PL in AE, I imagine the "fun factor" for having a nuke at level 2 would wear off within a few minutes. 

     

    Nukes aren't really what I had in mind for this idea personally, but you keep dancing with your strawmen.

  16. 3 minutes ago, tidge said:

    Bluntly: it sounds to me like the "I canna control my explosive nature" pretty much sounds like an Energy Blast Primary (or Secondary) with Knockback Enhancements. There is zero reason to have to wait for Nova in order to demonstrate 'poor control' in game.

     

    You're nitpicking the crap out of an example. I don't care what it sounds like to you. 

    You're justification for ruling out a change in progression order is backed up by you then dictating how other people should conceptually view those picks.

    You do you. Leave other people alone.

  17. 4 minutes ago, Excraft said:

    This is an extremely simple question to answer.

     

    It's particularly easy if you're going to make a set of simplistic and unwarranted assumptions.

    If the idea is that the standard level progression is the thing that is keeping this playerbase here, simply do this thought experiment:

     

    Imagine that the PL options are gone. This lovely experience of working your way up with the measured progression is mandatory.

    I don't think it's controversial to expect a huge chunk of the population to move on. The reason the playerbase is still what it is now, has to do with easing away from that mentality.

     

    15 minutes ago, Excraft said:

    You ignored these questions, so I'll ask them again.

     

    Because they've already been answered or you could figure it out yourself if you actually committed any brainpower to this.

     

    1. Variety. To make the content that you normally skip over interesting. You want a break from pling. You're sick of dfbs. You want to try using using  powers that you usually skip because the are subotimal or undesirable in light of how you usually plan things. This is largely a subjective issue.

     

    2. What is the actual tangible benefit for playing chess. Or throwing a frisbee. Figure it out.

     

    3. You could answer this yourself by looking at the options in the character creation screen. The fact that different options would be made available at different levels is fact. Whether or not you find this appealing is subjective. I'm not going to try to sell you on it any more than pushing you to badge, pvp, collect prismatic aethers, whatever.

     

    4. You don't care what other people are doing. You don't have to min/max all the time. You want some kind of challenge. A break from the norm. Variety is the spice of life.

    It's funny how min/maxer people sometimes get on these forums when they encounter an idea they don't like.

    In my experience ingame (in pve at least) people are pretty cool and laid back. They don't build shame you or anything unless there's a real chance of failing the mission, which is not that common.

     

    I hope that answers your questions.

     

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  18. 1 minute ago, tidge said:

    There seems to be a peculiar reliance on rather childish "go-to" metaphors that perhaps belies the level of critical thinking in the original idea.

     

    LMAO. Pot meet kettle? Everything seems to be an "I win" button to you. The orthodoxy has to be preserved because at it's core, it seems like you will feel like you've been cheated if someone else does something different from what you're grow accustomed to.

     

    If you think this is an asteroid strike onto a well-established ecosystem, you need to explain that. Pouting about one specific use (eg. nukes on lowbie) and elaborating why you don't get the appeal doesn't establish the supposed threat. Moreover, the notion that this suggestion poses that kind of a threat entails the assumption that a substantial number of people would be interested in it. 

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  19. 24 minutes ago, tidge said:

    Frankly: If ->you<- (points at @battlewraith ) are so bored that you must toss out the pre-level 30 content, I question how long before it would be before you get bored with this suggestion, and ask for another radical change to a game design that has worked well for a majority of players for decades.

     

    And this is a generic response that can be leveled at more or less any suggestion that has scope (not just QOL or a cosmetic change). 

    You want a new content >> how long is it going to be before you're bored with that content.

     

    A suggestion that is intended to make the low level content more interesting, is not trying to toss that content out. That would only be the case If I accepted your Chicken Little sky is falling mentality that it would somehow destroy the traditional level experience for everyone. It would not. You would not be required to engage with it in any way. And the strident objection to it on this front is indicative of an undercurrent of fear--that this option actually would be really popular with a lot of people to the extent that it would become impactful to crusty old timers. Don't see that happening.

     

     

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  20. 27 minutes ago, tidge said:

    There is no convincing me that this isn't an ask for "gimme the good stuff, NOW, when I want it."

     

    There have always been people you can't convince. There are people who could never be convinced to pvp. There are people who can never be convinced that PLing is ok. There are probably people who can't ever be convinced to play red side for some reason. That's not an argument, it's just someone's bias.

     

    But it is hilarious to me how divorced this is from the actual motivations I have for this proposal, which is about doing something different in terms of power selections, builds, leveling than what I typically do. And this is in a game that is over 20 years old and with areas of content (red, gold) that are largely unplayed. Ooooooooh this guy wants good stuff now. As opposed to what, waiting another 20 years for the fruits of your dogmatism to blossom?

     

    Trying to discredit "the very peculiar reason, un concept" I mentioned regarding the narratives we apply to game characters really shows how myopic you're being. You sound like an authoritarian child trying to gatekeep what dolls are allowed at a tea party. 

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  21. 5 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

    I agree with you.

     

    The only reason that I disagree with your suggestion is because, as I said before, I believe that it would be a lot of coding work for the devs and ultimately it would not make a damn bit of difference. I hope you can understand why I think that if the devs are going to spend that much time coding that it should be for something that does make a big difference.

     

    I understand. And I said repeatedly that I didn't expect this to happen. It's meant to be representative of the type of change I would like to see. 

    It's ideation. It's not a feasibility study.

    • Like 1
  22. 4 hours ago, tidge said:

    I can't tell that you actually understand your own mindset, let alone my mindset. If a player wants an AoE at level 2, pick up some Fragmentation Grenades or a Plasmatic Taser from START.

     

    This indicates you're not listening because reiterating a point I made earlier and don't seem to get it. The balance and progression you're holding so dear has been changed over the years. Not only have powers become available earlier, powerful set bonuses, procs, and even powers like the ones you mentioned can simply be bought from the vendors. But ermagard at someone under certain circumstances having a nuke early.

     

    4 hours ago, tidge said:

    Trying to rationalize this via some personal character concept is either narrow-sighted and/or a willingness to toss all semblance of game balance across all the game's content and zones out the window.

     

    Again no. This is a mode that people who had unlocked it would experience. It has nothing to do with balance across all the game's content. That was even a criticism leveled at it--that once you passed those early levels the character would probably be weaker than one with IOs. 

     

    4 hours ago, tidge said:

    If this is REALLY what you want, I'll sign the petition for a version of Echo Atlas Park that works like the temporal warriors for Recluse's Victory with insta level 50s that can street sweep to their hearts' delight and can't leave that zone.

     

    Well what I would really like is for you to take your suggestion born of ire and make your own suggestion thread about it, so that it can be discussed on it's own merits. 

    If it's just you being sarcastic because you don't approve of my "rationalizations", grow up. Move on. Follow the advice specified in "concerning this forum." The sooner people stop complaining, the sooner it will go away.

  23. 4 hours ago, Excraft said:

    Again, this is a you problem.  People are offering their perspective, not to personally attack or insult you, but to have a discussion and perhaps make refinements to your idea.  Do you think your idea is perfect as is?  Ok, good for you.  It isn't.  I'll continue to say so and offer more feedback for you. 

     

    You're not adding anything. You were one of the first people to speak out against the idea. If you can't remember anything, go back and reread the thread.

    If you actually don't understand the idea at this point, I can't help you. If you just don't like it--again I can't help you. I'm not here to sell you on it subjectively. 

  24. 9 minutes ago, tidge said:

     

    A strength of the player is that they can use their own imagination to self-explain their wide plethora of power choices within a necessarily balance, by character level, set of necessary restrictions.

     

    If I saw level two characters throwing nukes around on a DFB, my thoughts would be more likely to be "there goes somebody looking for an 'easy win' button" than "what a powerfully clever decision to take a nuke at level 2."

     

    I don't mean this as an insult, but I think this is a very clear indication of your mindset. You're viewing that behavior from a standpoint of "do they deserve it?" "Is that miniscule amount of xp actually properly earned"? I think you would absolutely see people throwing around nukes at that level because it would be fun. And different from the 100s if not 1000s of DFBs where you got your 2x xp buff and then dutifully pulled out your sands of Mu and blackwand and then ran through a bunch of the same mobs again

     

    You're looking at this as an easy win in the same world where someone can sit in a farm and do nothing at all and get far better rewards. Even joining a higher level team is more lucrative and would be more or less the same. If I run with a bunch of powerful characters in PI, that nuke is not going to make a damn bit of difference. It is about amusement for the person doing it, not the traditionalist bystander who is shaking their head at this breach of the proper way.

     

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