Super Homer

This thread is making me think that inspirations drop WAY too often....

If you go and create a character, under Tank, there are 3 ATs, not one. The brute job is also to hold agro, and they can do it pretty well since every single one of their attacks taunts. If you don't dismiss that the brute is indeed a very effective tank, how do you balance them other than make sure neither is overly better than the other at the one thing everyone cares about [damage]?

I have a question for you: What if today elusivity/anti-accuracy was implemented as you described in that 11 year old post? If I understand correctly, all sources of personal defense from armors (defense sets) and epic pools (Scorpion shield?) would become anti-accuracy and defender buffs, pool powers, set bonuses, those all would remain defense. Would you still say your statement holds? That it would hurt no one? Given how many builds these days are designed around tons of +def, it sounds to me that these builds would be perceived as being nerfed, as they no longer would floor x or y defense type. *I* personally think it would be awesome, but do you think it would be worth convincing anyone of this today? Be it the HC team or the player base that will be annoyed at no longer flooring smash/lethal/melee on this or that build?

Now THAT, IMO, is a fair suggestion. Another idea: escorts break the player stealth so everyone can see them, escort included. BTW, its not that I consider it "an unfair advantage" (not in a world where AE farms exist and are considered acceptable) but I also don't want game elements that add variety to the game entirely vanish.

Isn't that the point? "playability"? If the escorting out was as simply as stealthin and go out of the building without facing any encounters, then it may as well be just a "beat the boss, win the mission" and forget playing the escort. I know escorts are annoying, but you may as well just request they be removed from the game at that point.

This was actually in the plans, according to some post-shut-down interviews. There was going to be some ultimate trial involving the battalion that would end in a "primary/secondary" respect reward. Like the trial based respecs, I'm sure it would had been, at least initially, to once per character per trial that rewarded it (so... once.) I don't think they ever implemented the code needed for this to be possible at all, though.

Few things to keep in mind: Traditionally, at lest live devs, would mostly ignore any balance request for any set that included outside sources of damage. If your examples show Epic powers, pool powers, and IO procs, that example is considered irrelevant due to the game's "no pools, no IOs" design philosophy. If there is any balance issue due to IOs, that should be seen as an IO issue, not a set issue. If a set is seen as having lackluster slotting options due to bad options of sets for it's secondary effect, against, that is an IO issue. If a pool/epic power is too good but only for certain sets, again, that is a pool/epic power issue. I am not saying the concerns may not be valid, but primary/secondary sets are balanced by themselves. Also: nothing in this game is balanced on end-game optimal builds. This game has always carried a "no mistakes, just happy accidents" philosophy when it comes to balance at the end game, and how some things interact together.

If you go to the paragonwiki entry, you can see they likely were already scrapping the drone thing:

Given how the game is balanced around a damage formula that takes into account things like arc angle and radius, expanding the arc of many powers to that degree would come with a ridiculous damage nerf. That aside: a lot of the attacks that have a 45 degree arc are balanced as if they were single target, with any additionally hit targets being considered "bonus" if you manage to pull it off with good positioning or luck.

Rule of thumb is that epic pool powers are 2x the recharge of other versions of the same power. It seems to me, the "correct" fix is making the Dark Mastery version also 240s recharge. I'm not sure why the Dark Mastery one has a 15ft radius, they should all be 10ft. Maybe they started with a different power there and didn't fully change it to what it should be (240s, 10ft radius)

Like it has been said. For the later part of the game's life, though, devs were aware of the DPS issue, and simply did their best to match up slow animations with higher recharge powers so the DPS was smoother, while also making sure no set ever sat there just waiting for attacks to recharge.

I recall asking about this back before shutdown in beta, synapse said the set was potentially very powerful with next to no holes of any kind, no typed holes, no mez holes and the ability to become even sturdier or offensive. Lack of debuff resistances was how he saw the set “balanced it all out.”

OH LORD YES!

AR has aim? Also, attack chains may not be insane good, but all the attacks that usually do joke damage with a stun had their recharge cut and damage boosted, and snipes replaces with reliable attacks. This means even a DO build should be able to fill an attack chain. The snipe thing may be a double edge sword if the snipe changes in beta go through, though.

I think the devs still adhere to the Cottage Rule This means Time Bomb will always be a bomb that blows up and does damage, but a power like Conserve Power can get regen and heal tossed in on top of its endurance discount and become Energize. Under that rule, any suggestion that is expected to be implemented should not remove core functionality. It may be toned down to allow the extra effects be balanced, though. When they turned Conserve Power into Energize, they lowered a tad ira end discount, for example.

I'm talking about i24 beta. I dont think score touched dominators much, if at all, other than delivering Radiation and Savage Assault.

What I remember is the only reason doms got fast snipe capability at all is because they decided this was a redefinition if what a snipe was. They also told people that they would not give dominators any easy way to achieve perma fast snipe precisely because the snipes were adjusted long ago to be different, with the intention that the slow (and only) form would end up having non-shitty DPA (something that convinced no one to use them still.) So they tossed doms a bone to be able to use fast snipe only just after domination was activated. Btw, dom snipes were not always that strong, they became that strong after the revamp that removed the damage buff from domination.

Bitter Freeze ray already does as much damage as a snipe outside of beta. BFR = 172.67 cold damage Moonbeam 172.67 dark damage And if you focusing on the DPA, Bitter Ice Blast does 133.3 damage with a 1.07 cast time. With ArcanaTime accounted for, BIB has 118.65 DPA. Moonbeam (quick, live) has 118.10 DPA.

There is also a reason he never removed it, and that leads me to think the only reason he never actually make it unavoidable is that he was not allowed to do so.

If you just aim at "equivalents" sure, but if you aim to fix sets that underperform, then you could "get rid" of bean bag without removing it from those players that like it. Sentinels got rid of it in exchange of Aim, and they are better for it. Also: bean bag happens to be exactly at the spot where you would have Aim.

This would be a nice way to buff some sets without breaking cottage rules. Pick: Assault Rifle Bean Bag or Aim. Click stacking and crashing rage, or toggle non-stacking crash-free Rage.

What if Masterminds were redesigned to be like Arachnos soldiers? You roll a MM, pick your weapon (for your T1) and then at level 2 get to pick your Summon-sub-set (like Soldiers get to pick between Crab and Bane spider sets. More than the implementation, I would be worried what would it mean for anyone that already rolled a MM. Would such a thing break their characters? Another problem I see with this: Beast Summoning attacks actually are closely tied to the pets with the Pack Mentality mechanic.

I *think* alpha works by slotting in "global boosts" on all powers that can take them, so I think they would count towards any slotting penalties.

But scorpion shield!!!!

I loved those and actually deleted a character over them being changed. Would kill [skulls] to see them back.