Feedback: Testing Melee Set Performance

[MunkiLord]

6 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

I was on that thread also, im a brute player and im a tank player, i play them all like a tank though.  I love the proposed tank changes.

 

Shoot for that matter i play my trollers like tanks too.

I get it! I play all of my characters like Scrappers with a bad case of Scrapperlock.

[Hopeling]

1 hour ago, MunkiLord said:

TW over performs, I'm fine with it. I still don't think it deserves a nerf. People are having fun playing it and it's not breaking the game, so it should be left alone.

As I've brought up before, hardly a week goes by that we don't get another thread in General Discussion complaining about power creep. Not everyone is fine with it; I am one of them. This isn't concern-trolling; it's a real thing that is directly making the game less fun for a sizable number of players. TW certainly isn't the only source of power creep, but it's a stand-out example among melee sets.

Edited September 16, 2019 by Hopeling

[MunkiLord]

20 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

As I've brought up before, hardly a week goes by that we don't get another thread in General Discussion complaining about power creep. Not everyone is fine with it; I am one of them. This isn't concern-trolling; it's a real thing that is directly making the game less fun for a sizable number of players. TW certainly isn't the only source of power creep, but it's a stand-out example among melee sets.

But it makes it more fun for a sizeable group of players too. Why would we support such changes that would make the game less fun for us?

[Hopeling]

12 minutes ago, MunkiLord said:

But it makes it more fun for a sizeable group of players too. Why would we support such changes that would make the game less fun for us?

Is the amount of damage you deal a measure of how much fun you're having? If so, why did you ever play Claws/SR instead of Claws/Fire?

 

I honestly don't think that TW being merely top-tier instead of in its own tier would make the set less fun to play.

[Infinitum]

24 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

As I've brought up before, hardly a week goes by that we don't get another thread in General Discussion complaining about power creep. Not everyone is fine with it; I am one of them. This isn't concern-trolling; it's a real thing that is directly making the game less fun for a sizable number of players. TW certainly isn't the only source of power creep, but it's a stand-out example among melee sets.

It kinda is concern trolling, excelsior is lit up every night and my sg runs 2 task forces at the same time because we are briming over with people wanting to play the same content over and over again with alts, friends, family.

 

Not once is There any complaint its too easy.

 

Never comes up.

 

So whose right here and how do you qualify and quantify that.

 

What makes your bias more important than me and literally everyone I know in game?

 

I would get it if people were leaving left and right but just not seeing that.

 

Plus it's really nice feeling Super, I dont miss the days of extended AV fights or having to depend on any 1 AT just to complete content.

 

Right now you can pick up any AT any level any team size and do most anything in the game.

 

Couldnt say that at most points in live, you start throwing nerf wrenches at things that have improved the state of the game you will start eliminating the versatility that currently exists and then you WILL have people excluded from certain content because it cant be completed without the correct Formula or Add on the team then.

[Infinitum]

1 minute ago, Hopeling said:

Is the amount of damage you deal a measure of how much fun you're having? If so, why did you ever play Claws/SR instead of Claws/Fire?

 

I honestly don't think that TW being merely top-tier instead of in its own tier would make the set less fun to play.

It's melee as a whole, TW is one of the things thats working well for it.  Not to the point of nerfing it I don't think, but I am interested to see where all the sets stand.

[Hopeling]

3 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Plus it's really nice feeling Super, I dont miss the days of extended AV fights or having to depend on any 1 AT just to complete content.

 

Right now you can pick up any AT any level any team size and do most anything in the game.

 

Couldnt say that at most points in live, you start throwing nerf wrenches at things that have improved the state of the game you will start eliminating the versatility that currently exists and then you WILL have people excluded from certain content because it cant be completed without the correct Formula or Add on the team then.

For like the ninetieth time, literally nobody at any point in this thread has proposed anything like a nerf wrench. The only two concrete proposals are "slow down TW attacks by 0.1 seconds" and "remove the DoTs" (two mutually exclusive proposals; nobody has proposed doing both).

 

The former will have literally zero impact on you; you're already not running gapless chains. The latter removes a small fraction of the damage from two powers, one of which you don't even use. Do you honestly think this is going to make it substantially harder to form teams or take down AVs?

[Infinitum]

1 minute ago, Hopeling said:

For like the ninetieth time, literally nobody at any point in this thread has proposed anything like a nerf wrench. The only two concrete proposals are "slow down TW attacks by 0.1 seconds" and "remove the DoTs" (two mutually exclusive proposals; nobody has proposed doing both).

 

The former will have literally zero impact on you; you're already not running gapless chains. The latter removes a small fraction of the damage from two powers, one of which you don't even use. Do you honestly think this is going to make it substantially harder to form teams or take down AVs?

You havent proven it needs it by any standard.

 

And tuning it down is a nerf.

 

And it doesn't impact me this time because I dont even play TW anymore, but it may the next time when it's something I like that's suddenly too good thats breaking the game and ruining your fun again.

 

You sae my screenshot right?  I'm a psi melee player that I think is lightyears beyond TW.

 

You will come for it next. Then rad because those are too good.

 

Power creep is a never-ending myth that people use when they cant get their way on here.

[MunkiLord]

21 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

Is the amount of damage you deal a measure of how much fun you're having? If so, why did you ever play Claws/SR instead of Claws/Fire?

 

I honestly don't think that TW being merely top-tier instead of in its own tier would make the set less fun to play.

My biggest problem with this whole thing is not having an overall definition of where sets and ATs should be. If someone wants to make the claim that TW is the worst offender, I'd likely agree. But before I'd agree with the intent to nerf any set or AT, I want an overall standard. So I could then judge what sets/AT could potentially be in the crosshairs next. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I don't think this would be some sort of slippery slope in which the devs go on some sort of nerfing spree. But unintended consequences are a real thing. And I certainly wouldn't want a set that I actually care about to be collateral damage. After all Ice/Fire Blasters are soloing Master ITFs(at +4x8), a Fire/something Sentinel did a solo Ms Liberty TF, two Scrappers did Liberty TF, there are multiple outliers. So while TW is probably the worst offender, it's not the only one. 

 

I need to know where the line is before I can support any call for nerfs. 

 

I've already accepted Scrapper Rage will get nerfed before Super Strength gets ported over, so I can be reasonable about balance.

 

 

Edit: It's not just damage. Well built SR can make you feel invincible. Plus the ease of perma hasten levels or recharge for SR can help them get Claws top attack chain easier than Fire. Also, I haven't played Claws since I get to level 28 on my Claws/Regen and a week later Instant Healing was changed into a click power. I was a really shitty player back then and putting in all that work to finally get toggle IH for it to be changed was soul crushing lol. I wasn't pissed, just bummed so I moved on to another character. 

Edited September 16, 2019 by MunkiLord

[Hopeling]

1 hour ago, MunkiLord said:

My biggest problem with this whole thing is not having an overall definition of where sets and ATs should be. If someone wants to make the claim that TW is the worst offender, I'd likely agree. But before I'd agree with the intent to nerf any set or AT, I want an overall standard. So I could then judge what sets/AT could potentially be in the crosshairs next.

I agree that it would be useful to have a standard. That's what we've been talking about for the last several pages.

 

I think it's fair to say that, whatever the standard for melee ATs is, it's somewhere in the range of where most sets have been for most of the game's life. Scrappers and Brutes are very much not categorically underpowered; it wouldn't make sense to say that TW is the first set that has ever been up to par. I don't think anybody seriously contends that War Mace is underpowered in its current state, for example. Does that sound fair to you?

 

(The same thing would NOT be fair to say about certain other ATs; I think that most blast sets really have been underpowered for most of the game's life, for example, at least until the i24 snipe and nuke changes. Blasters really did deserve to be brought up across the board. But melee have been in a pretty good place for a pretty long time.)

 

If the pre-i23 sets range from Energy Melee at the bottom to Fiery Melee at the top (or whatever), then the standard is somewhere between Energy Melee and Fiery Melee. If TW is way out ahead of Fiery Melee, that means TW is above the standard and probably warrants a change. If the data comes back and TW is somewhere in the pack with the rest of the melee sets, or even if it's the best but not by much, I'd happily admit that I was wrong and that TW isn't really far enough from the line to warrant a change. I don't expect that to happen, but if it did, it would prove me wrong.

Edited September 16, 2019 by Hopeling

[Infinitum]

5 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

But melee have been in a pretty good place for a pretty long time.)

 

Ah no not buying that.  The rest of the game passed melee by for a long time especially after the EM nerf, it wasnt until buffs to mace, the arrival of TW Rad Psi, has melee been in a good place.

 

I basically quit playing after the EM nerf aside for a bout a month till sunset

 

Homecoming was like a new world with all the nice melee sets that were more powerful.

 

Is soloing a TF considered OP?  Just wondering.

[Haijinx]

18 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Ah no not buying that.  The rest of the game passed melee by for a long time especially after the EM nerf, it wasnt until buffs to mace, the arrival of TW Rad Psi, has melee been in a good place.

 

I basically quit playing after the EM nerf aside for a bout a month till sunset

 

Homecoming was like a new world with all the nice melee sets that were more powerful.

 

Is soloing a TF considered OP?  Just wondering.

I have solod Tfs on 

• STJ/WP scrapper 
• MA/EA Stalker
• Nightwidow 

So I am guessing not. 

 

Actually I also solo'd on a TW/WP Scrapper but that was while leveling, so I ate a lot more inspirations. 

 

Unless you mean TFs you can play at level 50 and at some crazy settings like +4/x8 or something? Then I don't know.  Sounds like that would be torture from a  time sense. 

Edited September 16, 2019 by Haijinx

[Indystruck]

43 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

You sae my screenshot right?  I'm a psi melee player that I think is lightyears beyond TW.

 

You will come for it next. Then rad because those are too good.

 

No one is coming for Psi Melee.

 

If anyone comes for it, it'll be to mark it as a candidate for some needed buffs. 

[Hopeling]

@Infinitum, the War Mace buffs are not at all new. They came in issue 13, back in 2008, just four months after the EM nerf.

 

Meanwhile, SS was always top-tier up until the rage crash change, and Claws, Dark Melee, Fiery Melee, and Katana (among others) are also about as good as WM, and have been soloing TFs essentially since the beginning. Melee builds with IOs have never not been powerful. That's not OP, that's the baseline.

[DSorrow]

4 hours ago, Hopeling said:

If the pre-i23 sets range from Energy Melee at the bottom to Fiery Melee at the top (or whatever), then the standard is somewhere between Energy Melee and Fiery Melee. If TW is way out ahead of Fiery Melee, that means TW is above the standard and probably warrants a change. If the data comes back and TW is somewhere in the pack with the rest of the melee sets, or even if it's the best but not by much, I'd happily admit that I was wrong and that TW isn't really far enough from the line to warrant a change. I don't expect that to happen, but if it did, it would prove me wrong.

This sums things up very well. Looking at the raw data and how my own TW/Elec performs, I have a strong suspicion that a slight toning down is justified, but if a battery of tests shows that TW is pretty much in line with the other sets in circumstances that represent normal gameplay, then absolutely nothing needs to be done. However, if those tests also indicates that it is too good, then it should be brought down slightly. It should still be top tier because going from "the best" to "kind of decent" would be the epitome of stupidity and cause a massive and justified uproar. Going from "the best" to "still the best, but with less of a gap to the runner up" sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Edited September 16, 2019 by DSorrow

[Infinitum]

5 hours ago, Indystruck said:

 

No one is coming for Psi Melee.

 

If anyone comes for it, it'll be to mark it as a candidate for some needed buffs. 

Have you ever played it?

[Infinitum]

4 hours ago, Hopeling said:

@Infinitum, the War Mace buffs are not at all new. They came in issue 13, back in 2008, just four months after the EM nerf.

 

Meanwhile, SS was always top-tier up until the rage crash change, and Claws, Dark Melee, Fiery Melee, and Katana (among others) are also about as good as WM, and have been soloing TFs essentially since the beginning. Melee builds with IOs have never not been powerful. That's not OP, that's the baseline.

Remember what I said? I left after the em nerf, the warmace change is new to me, so is TW Rad Psi and a bunch more.

 

Its better than what I remember, all of it.

 

Yeah powerful until you come up on the AV after the issue they buffed the crap out of their regen.  Then you are "looking for rad for av help"  you can take any team any level now and take on any AV in normal content and thats how it should be.

 

I am pretty sure what you are going to see is a bunch of sets need a little help, and TW is towards the top but a few are actually more effecient than it is when factoring in things like end usage, kb, and hard target.

 

Nothing feels like its so OP it needs toned down, melee as a whole is right in line with the rest of the game with how the team dynamic feels. Would really suck if that ends up ruined again.

[Hopeling]

2 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Remember what I said? I left after the em nerf, the warmace change is new to me, so is TW Rad Psi and a bunch more.

 

Its better than what I remember, all of it.

Yes, that was my point. These things may be new to you, but they are not actually very new. If War Mace has been fine since the buffs, that means it's been a good set for the last eleven years, which is well over half the game's lifespan. Hence me saying it's been "in a pretty good place for a pretty long time".

[Infinitum]

44 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

Yes, that was my point. These things may be new to you, but they are not actually very new. If War Mace has been fine since the buffs, that means it's been a good set for the last eleven years, which is well over half the game's lifespan. Hence me saying it's been "in a pretty good place for a pretty long time".

So for 11 years the game has been stable, correct?  Flourishing now more than ever since the private server was exposed and Homecoming has done an awesome job bringing it to all of us.  Why all the sudden are there issues with the"game breaking"? 

 

I think it's just an extreme overreaction to something that is perceived but not real.

 

Power creep obviously hasn't destroyed it or even affected it..  Eventually the new will wear off CoH with some people but it won't be TW or how the power structure of the game is that's at fault.  If anything melee has finally caught up to the rest of the coh world and that's a good thing for all us melee players.

Edited September 16, 2019 by Infinitum

[Hopeling]

12 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

So for 11 years the game has been stable, correct?

Not correct, no. TW was live for less than a year before shutdown, and development ended just a few months into that time. Many other changes occurred between i12 and i24. They just weren't changes to the melee sets from launch. Those were basically unchanged in that time period, hence my using them as a benchmark.

Edited September 16, 2019 by Hopeling

[Infinitum]

11 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

Not correct, no. TW was live for less than a year before shutdown, and development ended just a few months into that time. Many other changes occurred between i12 and i24. They just weren't changes to the melee sets from launch. Those were basically unchanged in that time period, hence my using them as a benchmark.

Was TW on the private server?

[Hopeling]

After shutdown? I assume so, yes. I wasn't in on it.

[Infinitum]

6 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

After shutdown? I assume so, yes. I wasn't in on it.

So how many years did it run without any issues or complaints about power creep?

[Galaxy Brain]

The time between shutdown and now is essentially dead zone due to a tiny tiny tiny amount of people playing if at all.

 

So TW was "live" for a few months as a pay to get set, then it's been live again for a few more months as a set everyone has access to.

Edited September 16, 2019 by Galaxy Brain

[Hopeling]

14 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

So how many years did it run without any issues or complaints about power creep?

Neither you nor I were there, so I'm not sure how you can know there were no issues nor complaints. Power creep and TW being overpowered were recurring topics of discussion before shutdown, and still are now.

 

As far as I can tell, essentially no balance adjustments of any kind occurred between shutdown and Homecoming. But that doesn't mean the current dev team is uninterested in balance; for example, the most recent patch significantly adjusted Devices as well as most Dominator secondaries. Nor are nerfs off the table; Envenomed Blades was brought down significantly. Nor did /Martial Dominators revolt: the primary reaction seems to be "oh well, it's still fun".

 

Why wasn't TW nerfed? Well, based on GM posts in this thread, it's because nobody had time to look into it. That's why he said they'd take a look at the data if we can collect it.