Kimuji

What I find funny is that no one seems interested in the much simpler solution: disable accolades bonuses for PVP. It acheives the exact same result as giving a free buff to everyone, it's just as fair and balanced. No one getting the bonus is strictly the same as everyone getting it. But it's almost like getting the accolades benefits more easily is more important than achieving balance. Curious...

I'm afraid I'm not strawmannig that much just look how this topic went. The title is "Please revert the Rage change", from that we went to a completely crash less Rage not just removing the defense crash, removing everything, and now we're talking proliferation... It's the very definition of a cascade reaction. And there are enough threads on this section of the forum to show that such demands will surface sooner or later with the same argument "you don't have to play it, don't ruin other people's fun". And that is completely ignoring that such demands also ruin some people's fun by greatly altering the game's identity. I'm enjoying the game as it is, and I suppose they do as well because they wouldn't be here otherwise. The fact that all melee sets weren't available to all melee ATs never prevented them from having fun. Not proliferating some sets to other ATs will not remove anything from the fun they're already having. On the other hand it will make the game more bland for me and some other players, it will weaken ATs identities, in other words it will diminish our fun. We're talking hypothetical fun some would get vs the very real loss some others will feel because the game has been changed. I'm sorry but I'm not the one being selfish here, I'm not taking anything from anyone (ie I'm not asking to revert some proliferations), that's the way the game currently is they're not losing anything if some set aren't going to be proliferated. It's quite the contrary actually, they are asking for something that I enjoy to be removed so they can have MORE fun. There's the same pattern on the EM thread, we were talking about how to fix EM and then we saw some people jump in "oh yeah and once EM is cool again please give it Scrappers". Seriously? This is pure hijacking.

I don't think it's totally useless. Indeed a lot of proliferation has already happened, but I don't believe that it means that we should completely abandon the concept. Super Strength is the most iconic of all Tankers secondaries. There's an entire thread on this section of the forum about Tankers losing their specificity and what we could do to make them more unique again (the "Tanker Brute Connundrum" thread). Giving the set that's got the strongest ties to their identity to other ATs would achieve the exact opposite. And the very existance of the Rage crash is tied to that identity and gameplay specificity. Because of course such a crash would make no sense at all on an AT completely focused on damage like Scrappers. And that's why you only find that sort of mechanic on a Tanker/Brute set, because they're the only ones where it makes sense. So, the whole "let's remove the crash and proliferate" is basically sacrifying a Tanker/Brute set's identity in order to make it work for Scrappers. Giving SS to Scrappers and Stalkers would hurt Brutes quite a bit, and Tankers a whole f*ing lot. And they don't need that, they haven't much left that is unique to them, let's not take that away with the rest.

I stopped pvp but I've been pvping a lot during my first run in the game. And competitively I may add (i.e with a regular team, voice and all for strategy and constant communication). I do understand the difference a 20% HP can make, it's massive but I just find this aspect irrelevant regarding the current topic. And this for a reason that I have already explained: all pvp players have to meet the same requirements in order to get that advantage, no one is getting this advantage for free so how is it an unfair advantage? Everyone is free to get through the regular process, no one is prevented from trying. Now why would diabling accolades in arenas be a balance issue? That's the contrary of an imbalance that's perfect balance, it puts everyone on the same level.

When you're throwing an accusation of this sort you have to prove why that comparison doesn't make sense. Again, who actually thinks that the devs didn't give tankers and scrappers the exact same set pools to chose from just for the sake of limiting the player's fun? Is it impossible to imagine that there were gameplay and theme reasons behind it?

I get that accolades make a bigger difference in pvp, but aren't all pvp players already required to go through the same process to get them? The pvp players who take the time to do the content required for the accolades get an advantage over those who don't, it doesn't seem unfair to me. Warlawk's idea might be something worth digging though. Why not disabling accolades in the arena where the duels or team duels are supposed to be fair? I don't really see why accolades should be disabled or given for free in open pvp zones though.

Yes, sturdy ≠ tank

I'd say it's more about how much pressure the community can put on the devs. That's how it works sadly. Bandwagoning is a thing (might not be a word though lol). No, I don't trust the community to make sensible requests, or, to be a bit less pessimistic not using sensible requests made by others as a mean to push their own unreasonable demands. Just look at this section of the forum, it is the very definition of “if you give them an inch, they'll take a mile”. And I still don't understand how pvp accolades will make pvp more attractive and more alive. Is there a single pvp player out there who left pvp because he couldn't get the accolades through pvp only? Is there a dormant pvp community that will rise and come to bolster the ranks of the current active pvp community if accolades are made available through pvp? I very doubt so. Oh and last question, do you actually think that all pve players find the accolades acquisition process not tedious? Just like crafting your incarnate powers, your purple sets, your ATOs etc...

Then let's give melee sets as a possible choice to Blasters and controls to Brutes, and if you don't want to play it on Blasters and Brutes then don't. Very simple. If other people enjoying and playing it would bother you, that's a 100% you problem. Sounds absurd? It is. AT uniqueness and flavor isn't a stupid concept, that's what separate the shitty Champions Online system from CoH. This is destroying CoH's identity and gameplay. Can't you imagine just one second that several sets were exclusive to certain ATs for a good reason? No? Do you think that the devs just did it to frustrate everyone? You are destroying a formula that some of us have been enjoying for years. And you too have been enjoying it since you're still here playing the game. There's something all of you "if you don't like it don't play it" are missing: YOU are the ones asking for the game to be bent until it fits YOUR liking. You are the ones asking for the EXISTING rules to be altered. I am not the one asking for them to be changed so don't project your own demands on others and apply your own lessons to yourselves: if you don't like it don't play it. Hell this whole thread could have been ended in the second post if a smartass had come with a "if you don't like it don't play it" argument.

I think he didn't mean that you, personally, will ask later for these accolades to be obtainable only through pvp or that you had a similar long term plan in mind but that others might bandwagon later to use it to that end. I don't really understand how it will lmake pvp more appealing though, if the pvp players don't like doing the pve content to get them then it means that few people have them, so it makes accolades less essential. And if most pvp players have the accolades then it means that they're already doing the pve content anyway and don't need to get them through pvp. Or make that change only for the pvp server if that's possible? I don't know...

I don't find it very fair/balanced to have absolutely zero crash for a single Rage and a big one for stacked Rages. Let's not forget that rage gives a +20% To Hit on top of damage, it's not a minor detail. No other set gets such an important permanent accuracy buff, a simple instance of Rage running is already a significant bonus that can't hardly be given for free. So I still believe that a small crash ( -dmg and maybe -end) for 1 rage and the big current crash for 2 rages is still the most balanced option. And let's not forget that 2 rages means 2 crashes, it can't be none at all for 1 rage. Only one small crash every 2 minutes for 1 rage compared to one big crash every minute for stacked rages seems like a pretty good deal. And I don't like the idea of giving Super Strength to scrappers (or stalkers). SS is an iconic Tankers and Brutes powerset, it's the epitome of the big guy's powers. Its proliferation would only weaken the flavor and difference between ATs. And this is not bad for a set allegedly 'unfun' and broken set:

I'm gonna +1 this. The only change ET needs is a faster animation. Turning it into an AoE or something else doesn't make sense and goes against the spirit of EM.

Like I said If that means that we're not dumping Build Up and ET/TF are still getting faster animations (without reduced damage of course), why not.

The life of an EM toon is a simple one: pop Build Up then TF+ EM. 😁 That being said I'm not totally dismissing that kind of mechanics but it would be a bonus. Something in addition to the core fixes. For now I think that making ET and FT functional with the standard Build Up power should be the priority. Adding some bells and whistles after that could be possible as long as it doesn't make the set OP.

Yeah I like EM's animations, including Barrage. And yes I think that to most here the goal isn't to make EM something that will flatten entire groups in seconds but to give it back its single target explosiveness, that ability to deliver a massive amount of damage to a target in just a few hits. Even in the 'old days' EM wasn't the best pve set, its aoe capabilities were as limited as they are today and great single target damage burst could only carry you so far, but you had a spot as a boss and lieutenant killer. And of course it was very popular for pvp because pvp is all about burst damage, and the impressive amount of stun you could stack was the icing on the cake. So that's what EM 'nostalgics' are after, not really a well balanced set with fancy mechanics. I mean those are nice but EM dabs more into the extremes. EM is about unbalance, and I don't mean unbalanced when compared to the other sets, but unbalanced within the set itself. EM's base idea is to sacrifice key areas in order to excel at delivering high bursts of damage (you sacrifice your aoe and your own HPs for this). And that's why I don't think these mechanics based on building damage over time and similar concepts are on spot when we're talking about EM. They are perfectly fine and very interesting ideas for other sets, but EM's identity and concept lies in ST explosiveness not in a progressive power build up. Maybe we should do more than just make ET lightning fast again and FT no longer the sluggish slow motion attack it is now to make EM excel at what it is designed to do, but that would already be a good start. (And if people are bold enough to ask for a perma crash less Rage for SS then it shouldn't be a problem if EM, a much more under-performing set than SS, also gets a Build Up with twice the damage bonus right? 😄 ).

You know what, I Iike the choice between Build Up or Rage suggestion even better than the choice between Might (aka Rage with a light crash) and Rage. 😛

Or give Titans Weapons perma momentum, remove Hasten's end crash... oh and make Build Up/Aim permanent because it's not fair that SS gets a permanent Acc/Dmg bonus! 😏

The thread is called "Please revert the the Rage change", the Rage change in question is the fix to the defense crash not applying when Rage is stacked twice. So I'm 100% on topic. If the def crash hadn't been fixed this topic wouldn't exist and no one would be asking for a crash less Rage, so yes derailing the topic into a demand for a crash less Rage is a hijack. Now mind you it's partially working because even people like me who were against reverting the fix are ok with the idea of an alternative power that would work like Rage with a very small penalty. No Def crash, no End crash, just a 10s damage debuff at the end of a 2 minutes +80% damage and +20 accuracy buff. So, well done I guess. I strongly disagree with the fact that Super Strength is perfectly balanced for a permanent stack of Rage without a crash. We can argue whether Super Strength's damage with a permanent Rage is or isn't too much compared to the other sets, Captain Powerhouse thinks it is not, it is debatable but at the end of the day even if I'm not entirely convinced I don't think it is an unreasonable opinion. But he did forget to take into account an important aspect: the accuracy bonus. A permanent +20% to hit bonus is huge. SS doesn't only get to hit harder it also hits more reliably. There are other powers that give you a permanent accuracy bonuses, these are toggles and they are absolute endurance hogs: Focused Accuracy and Tactics. So no I don't think it is neither fair or balanced to get that kind of damage boost + that high accuracy bonus for absolutely free. Nothing in the Super Strength set was balanced around this to work without any sort of counterpart. The only power in the set with an accuracy penalty is Hand Clap, all other powers behave exactly like any other powers from any other set. Knockout Blow even gets the usual accuracy bonus the high damage single target powers get. And on another (not so) smaller note Rage doesn't only affect your Super Strength powers, it will also improve all your damaging powers: your auras, your auxiliary/ancillary,everything. So you can't just limit your balance assertions to Super Strength alone in order to quantify Rage's benefits. The damage crash has been there since day one, it's been more than 10 years that people have been enjoying Super Strength the way it is. SS is by far one of the most popular set for Tankers and you are going to tell me that SS has got a huge problem be cause every 2 minutes you can't punch things for 10s? So those people who have been enjoying SS all that time were either masochists or complete idiots I guess? SS doesn't work, it's unfun but the set has never tanked in popularity. The facts speak much louder than a few people here claiming that Super Strength is unfun because of the crash. "Unfun" is the most subjective argument someone can come up with. And when I say "I insist" it does not mean "I demand", do not twist my words in order to make me sound like I'm the unreasonable person here when you are the one defending an extreme position. "I insist" means that I strongly believe that removing all form of penalty from Rage is a significant mistake. Both from a gameplay balance and a theme perspective. A crash limited to a 10s dmg debuff every 2 minutes isn't an awful, unfun, unreasonable price for an otherwise permanent massive damage and accuracy boost. On the contrary it's an amazing deal. Hell, the crash has never been as painless as this.

It's almost signed for me. I'll just insist on a small crash even for that alternative Rage power. It should at least retain the 10s of negated damage. That would be only fair for those going the old Rage route and dealing with a massive crash (dmg/end/def). Because not only Rage's crash is much bigger but it also happens twice as often: the new refreshable Rage would mean a small crash every 2min, the current double stack Rage means a big crash every minutes. And it would also make sense, I mean if you're going the old Rage route it's because you want more damage, but it kinds of defeat the point of sacrificing all that defense and endurance for damage's sake if the "light" Rage comes with no damage penalty at all. The "light" Rage will be attacking non stop while you'll have to stop for 10s every minutes, I'm not even sure you're really doing that much more damage in the end. lol A 10s dmg debuff every 2 min is a very reasonable price to pay imo and I can't imagine it being a real issue for anyone. Damn that's another compromise... I started with -dmg AND -end, I'm ok with only a -dmg now... but that's as far as I'll go. (And I'm still not really convinced that we should dump the -end lol)

In fact it's like EM is forced to follow a different set of limitations that don't apply to the other sets. EM is forced to stay under 50 mph because who knows what would happen otherwise (Coh would die!) while everyone else is allowed to break that speed limit. It's the same with PvP, IOs made everyone a lot more sturdy, being hit by Energy Transfer isn't as scary as it used to be back then (well even back then Regen laughed at ET). The setting has changed.

That's a funny idea, I don't know if the distance thing is doable but it's definitely an interesting concept. Not all sets have a PBAoE though (Street Justice for instance). In the same spirit and a bit less powerful (because that knocktoward is a very powerful ability IMO) some suggested here that Taunt could debuff the foe's attacking range even more to force them to go into melee.

Well no one had a problem with Burn's damage until farmers broke the system by stuffing it with damage procs to bring it to stupid levels.

Uh regarding the changes to Burn... how about we tweak Burn in a way that procs will no longer trigger? That would be much preferable to a fix that will hurt even those who were not abusing of the IO procs mechanic. Fiery Aura doesn't need a blow like this one, I mean everyone is getting punished because there is a way to abuse the system. It's the interaction between Burn and the IO procs system the issue, not Burn's "natural" base damage. I really think that keeping the base damage as it is while preventing the use of damage proc IOs is the best compromise.

But Might would be precisely that more usable Rage alternative, with some penalties still attached to it. Might is basically an un-stackable Rage, with the 10s -dmg and -end crash and no defence penalty. That's pretty much what the no -def crash crowd wanted. And beside that more usable Rage power there would be the good old Rage for those who don't mind the full crash. I mean that's a real compromise here, I was clearly on "the crash is fine as it is" side. And yet to some (I'm not including you here) I'm the extremist with dumb ideas.

Uh... how about we tweak Burn in a way that procs will no longer trigger? That would be much preferable to a fix that will hurt even those who were not abusing of the IO procs mechanic. I mean everyone is getting punished because there is a way to abuse the system. Fiery Aura doesn't need a blow like this one, I really think that keeping the base damage as it is while preventing the use of damage proc IOs is the best compromise.