battlewraith

It's hard to tell whether you just don't get it or are lousy at explaining yourself. Take a certain context, like a farming brute. Obviously certain sets and builds are clearly better for this task than others. So what then does balance mean in this situation? All the brute builds should be equally good at farming? The builds that are good at farming should also be on par doing things like AVs? What? This is a contradiction. If they truly have different characteristics, performance should vary depending on the situation. Otherwise those different effects and whatnot are just superficial surface details. And if those differences in characteristics are actually significant, certain sets and builds might become standard picks for players, not because of imbalance, but because they are most suited to the content that players enjoy running. Or they're just more fun for some reason. "Let's provide everyone with rigorous, standardized mediocrity so that I don't have to worry about another set outperforming mine."

I don't think anybody is arguing that this change couldn't lead to a DPS increase. Obviously if that's your thing, knock yourself out. The question that the naysayers continue to duck is whether that added damage, for those that seek to pursue it, is actually significant. The examples here are silly. Another LotG slot. Oh the humanity. Adding assault on a blaster--with no trade off! Except the added end cost of running assault. Which is probably overkill on a decently built blaster and redundant on a team with buffs that is probably at damage cap already.

Outperforms in what way? Farming? Pvp? Pylon tests? Specific enemy groups? You complain about cookie cutter builds and min maxing, and then turn around and advocate a one size fits all mentality on game balance. Moreover, what he's talking about here isn't nerfing for balance. He wants to roll back global changes to revisit a previous era of development for which he has nostalgia. I didn't say I hate nerfs in general. I said I hate the notion he's pushing. I believe most people still playing the game would.

LOL. Ok Miss Manners lemme address both your original post and the BIG EDIT post: 1. It appears to me that you have an unprecedented level of butthurt over a simple pithy statement. I suspect that this is a distraction from the subjective nature of your statements upon which I and other people have remarked. I do find it amusing. 2. I hate your bad ideas about nerfing. I think that other people, probably most of the player base, would hate them too. I think you should stop hiding in someone else's suggestion thread and post your own thread calling for these broad nerfs and see what kind of response they actually garner. Not that you care what other people think, but there are objective assessments that could be made from the responses. 3. The new tagline is fucking hilarious. Chef's kiss.

Maybe you should stop being so emotionally invested in this exchange, it seems to be hampering your ability to reason. What I wrote is my assessment of your stances on this issue. The fact that you don't like it doesn't make it a lie. It's an opinion. But again, this is consistent with how you've been throughout this discussion. You lack the ability to relate to people that think differently about an issue. As in: Simple answer: Not everyone thinks the same way you do.

Dude, do you know what lying actually means? I think your argument is bad and self-serving. I explained why. And I'm not the only one in this thread that disagrees with you. It all boils down to opinion and you're not handling it well for some reason. The actually lying is here: If you actually took that to heart, you wouldn't be agitating for nerfs and complaining about changes that other people want. This change would only affect you if you decided to change your build. But ya think you know better and you gotta have people do it your way.

Ok so it's power creep when it's something you don't want. Gotcha. Quit being a baby about it. You baby. lol.

FFS, just stop. You're smarter than that. Everyone one of my characters could be doing more damage right now if I wanted to skip on something else that I think is important--like buffing teammates or something. You want nerfs. Overall. And you don't care what other people think is fun or what motivates them to play--you've made that clear in this thread. The devs would be foolish at this stage of the game to follow your lead. They should be offering things to different types of players and those things don't have to follow this hardline ethic you got going which isn't the case and wouldn't add anything to the experience if you had your way.

Well put. The power creep crowd in this thread is fixated on a general view of balance that ignores variations in player knowledge, interests, and the long and varied history of the development of this game. Bill's big rebuttal here is a presumed increase of dps on a specific character's pylon performance. A very niche (vague) example extrapolated to address the entire breadth of the issue. The objection is that power creep makes things too easy. People who feel this way are a subset of the population. The devs are introducing content for them. Easing off on the mandates that result in wasted power picks is likely to be a plus for more casual players for a variety of reasons.

Well you haven't actually given the facts. He asked you what the decrease in time would be and if it was appreciable. You haven't given a number for how much dps would go up under these circumstances. I think you're probably right that you could raise your dps. Does that fact mean that, because of somebody's slight improvement under controlled circumstances in a very specific context, everyone should be saddled with the requirements that prevent you from achieving this marginal gain? IMO no. It's probably irrelevant to most players. Certainly is to me. You could make some gimpy build that skips aoe attacks and movement powers to do the same thing under the current system.

Yeah it's really damning if we hold single target damage against a pylon as the gold standard for how everyone should build. Using a build that heavily leverages IOs and incarnates to probably result in a minor damage buff.

Meaning that, for the sake of this particular metric, you are going to sacrifice the defensive benefit of barrier in order to cover the added end cost of running the 1 slotted end hog that is focused accuracy. Not that you would run this configuration in general. Or am I misunderstanding you here?

They shouldn't give up. But this change isn't "going in the other direction." Viewing this as making things easier is a lens that orthodox players use to view the issue. Don't like it? Don't do it. Is it making lower level content easier? Turn up your mission difficulty. The issue (for me) is that your obligated to a fee, in what are pretty standard builds, to take powers that are either trash or irrelevant to what you're trying to make. They did away with the fee in some pools and it didn't break the game. They could try it with the others and put it on test to see if it ruins everything. It's the slippery slope argument. The same argument can be used about pretty much any change. If you're going to change (x), what's next? When will it end? The answer to that question is that it will end when the developers want it to end. As to how long it would keep me happy, keep in mind that this is a global change that removes a pain in the ass from any build that uses pool powers. Almost all players are already benefitting from this change when it comes to travel powers. So if they add new powersets or ATs, those additions will benefit as well. A more serious problem, IMO, is simply lack of change. Lack of development. I think that's a driving force in people leaving and it's aggravated by people who extremely change averse on the forums. Yep. Cheers.

Sad that your moment of self-awareness passed so quickly.

They just added tough content meant to be challenging. It hasn't been a resounding success. If challenge is what you want, you can set your own parameters--impose your own limitations if you want. This isn't a new game. Part of the reason it's so easy is that the majority of the playerbase are veterans who have been playing it for years. That familiarity and knowledge bleeds through everything . When I started, it took me months of steady playing to get my first 50. Looking back, I didn't understand the mechanics. Now you can get help and information and seasoned veterans are available to guide you through anything. I don't think challenge is the issue for most players. People like being badass. The real issue imo is literally running variations on the same content for years. Eventually the novelty wears off. There are different types of players. I'm blase about the content, I'm probably more interested in building. Changes that open up build possibilities give me a reason to roll a new character. The people who moralize about this are out of touch. Really strong builds already exist. Maybe this change will make them easier somehow--so what? The players who want that kind of build already have it. They will have it regardless of whether a change like this goes forward or not. And maybe alternatives that don't currently exist will emerge. At least its something new under the sun.

I don't think it would be substantially easier. I don't think it would really make that much different to be honest. I think people just go full blown Chicken Little over the idea of change. When you factor in power choices for mules and whatnot, minor changes. But could be interesting.

Yeah, it's declining. Wonder if it has anything to do with the game being from 2004? hmmm. Better make it MORE like it was in 2004. That's the ticket.

The game is easy. It has been easy for a long time. People were complaining about it being easy back on live. They did everything they could to make it city of soloists. Which is something you liked because you fancy soloing ITFs no? Why don't you make you're rollback suggestion in another thread and see how it goes over? Everyone can lose their early travel powers and all of their Iwin buttons and it will all be great again right? You are fixated on a pipe dream. And the idea that it needs to be harder is farfetched when the hard content they introduced doesn't seem to be that popular. Some people like to farm, some like to build, some roleplay, etc.

Or people are playing something new. How many people leave because it's the same old thing for years? You can't look at the population numbers and just assume it's whatever you want.

Egads you're confused. Really and sadly confused. And apparently trying to get this thread locked.

It's a game. The purpose is to entertain people. If something is popular, it's an indication that people are being entertained. If you completely divorce your notions of what is "good" from what is appealing to your audience--then you could drive this whole thing into the ground and still pat yourself on the back thinking you did good work. Likewise, you could hold what you have as the best thing ever, ignore any call for change, and just let it be a stagnant museum piece until the remnants of the player base wither away. You still have the the same slots and number of powers as before. Wanna take tactics at lvl 4, knock yourself out. Power creep matters. It's just not a convenient excuse to shoot down everything you don't like for whatever reason. There's a middle ground that can found. On one hand you want to roll everything back to the good old days, and on the other you fly off the rails and say well why not get rid of all restrictions.

What you're asking for is way more radical than changing the structure of the power pools. Those were not bad decisions, they were popular with the playerbase. You wanna tap the game in the knee with a lead pipe and fight power creep by slowing everything down and inflicting...actual creeping. Ain't gonna happen. People would be pissed and it wouldn't be any major improvement. In contrast, skipping some more prerequisite powers in the pools would likely result in a couple less power slots wasted in some builds. No one has made any substantial case for how this would be gamebreaking other than the generic hand waving about power creep.

The pools don't all follow the same rules. I thought that was the whole point of this thread. Also, the structure of these pools was established back in the beginning--when fitness was a separate pool. That pool was considered mandatory for most people and it was a drag to have to waste picks on it--so the devs made it an inherent. It was a drag to wait on travel powers, so again they loosened the requirements on that as well. The idea the initial rules are set in stone and cannot be changed due to thematic, progression, or whatever justification that relates to the initial plan of the game is nonsense. It's factually incorrect. And it's ridiculous to say that in a suggestion thread.

Then you play Y. You play what is fun for you. It's always been that way. There has always been disparities between classes and builds. Back in the early days on live my dm/inv scrapper kicked ass. My friend's blaster was truly a glass cannon and constantly was drowning in debt. He had fun though, so he stuck with it and when we teamed he had even more fun. We should not all be able to have the same amount of fun playing regardless of AT or powersets unless we are all clones of the same person.

My dude, it's a game. If the point of the game is not to have fun, then what is it? If the pursuit of balance leads to it being less fun for the playerbase, then what is the value of pursuing balance? This strikes me as a fundamental question, not a separate topic.