Feedback: Testing Melee Set Performance

[Infinitum]

4 minutes ago, MunkiLord said:

I've find this to be an odd thing to ask in this context. Because the people that are asking for the nerf are doing so because that is what they want. So why not turn it around and ask them to think about the ones that like it as is?

Im not even a fervent TW player so my main goal is thinking of other people rather than allow what happened to me with EM back when that fiasco went down.

 

I also dont want that to creep over to the sets i DO like and main then.

 

Yeah, whats odd is everyone agrees some sets need buffs regardless of what TW does.   So my point that i keep trying to bring up is why not buff what we know is needed first rather than nerf something we cant agree on yet.

 

I dont see where the harm in that is.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Infinitum

[Infinitum]

26 minutes ago, TheAdjustor said:

Not to add more fuel to this dumpster fire of a thread, but this is what's known as biasing a testing procedure. It's already known that TW isn't top tier on clearing large maps, it's especially not so pre incarnate because it sucks end. So what do you do if you want to make a case for nerfing TW ? You remove the cases where it's bad, you also fail to adjust for the amount of investment the build requires to be good.

 

 

I think the outdoor farm map may be a good starting point because of the EB spawns, spread out area and in general larger numbers of spawns.

[MunkiLord]

Has anyone looked at that Scrapper DPS spreadsheet thread I linked to earlier? It has really good information in it based on various recharge levels and attack chains at those specific levels of recharge. And it has information on endurance cost to run such chains. 

[Hopeling]

19 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

The one I disagree with is the Blaster NPC. I meant a Blaster PC with no slotting but accuracy and maybe endurance. Someone who comes in with the express intent of disrupting spawns to see if the change is significant or if the added damage offsets the loss in the overall time of the encounter

I'm not sure that's a better test condition than an NPC. It also makes the test harder to construct, since you need a second player, and it introduces an extra variable of how evil that player is. (And it cuts inspiration drops in half compared to the solo condition, which is another variable to account for.)

[TheAdjustor]

Just now, Infinitum said:

I think the outdoor farm map may be a good starting point because of the EB spawns, spread out area and in general larger numbers of spawns.

Agreed, but this whole thing is so nuts it's not funny.  The most profitable farmer I had on live was an Arch/Ment blaster that could clear maps faster than anything else that was even mentioned. (if there was something it still hasn't gone public). Big caveat though, those were -1x8 maps with no bosses.  Back then purple recipe drops were far and away the most valuable results of kills , and while archery has pathetic single target damage and a nuke with it's own problems was able to do the job via leveraging the AOE potential of the combination.  Blasters in general do/did very well against -1 content but lets face it range is their defense only to the extent they have set bonuses for it and they can kill things before they get close. 

 

The point is that you never saw people clamoring for a nerf of blasters because so many people had tried them and were aware of the difficulties in playing them that aren't captured in tables.

 

Hell everybody going oh look at the table at how much damage TW does, completely ignores the type of damage it does, which is S/L the most resisted type of damage in the game. Incidentally something the pylon testing obscures.

 

[Galaxy Brain]

2 minutes ago, MunkiLord said:

Has anyone looked at that Scrapper DPS spreadsheet thread I linked to earlier? It has really good information in it based on various recharge levels and attack chains at those specific levels of recharge. And it has information on endurance cost to run such chains. 

That's literally all I linked to as well but its "a darned pylon test!" So they dont count 😛

 

Farming doesnt reflect actual gameplay for the majority of players, and I would argue that insps are far too RNG to factor.

 

 

Edited September 15, 2019 by Galaxy Brain

[Steampunkette]

1 minute ago, Hopeling said:

I'm not sure that's a better test condition than an NPC. It also makes the test harder to construct, since you need a second player, and it introduces an extra variable of how evil that player is. (And it cuts inspiration drops in half compared to the solo condition, which is another variable to account for.)

"No Inspirations" seems fair. And it would have to be the same two players testing every powerset. Perhaps put express limits on the Evil PC as to how much scatter they're allowed to do. Like only directional, nothing Radial. Energy Torrents only, but no Recharge Slotting. Hell... Have the Blaster on follow with Energy Torrent on Autocast, targeting the player being tested. Straight lines away from the Brute.

 

I say Brute 'cause I wanna see Superstrength in this test.

 

I have Wednesday and Thursday off this week as well as OBS. I could load up Justin and dual-box my husband's account, set us both up and start the tests?

[TheAdjustor]

3 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

That's literally all I linked to as well but its "a darned pylon test!" So they dont count 😛

 

Farming doesnt reflect actual gameplay for the majority of players, and I would argue that insps are far too RNG to factor.

 

 

Everybody I know farms at least a little. FOTM tables say the most popular combination is a spines fire brute.  Seeing as it's logical that for every person that has a dedicated farmer has other characters they farm for, I would have to see evidence before accepting what on its face seems an assumption refuted by what information we do have.

[Galaxy Brain]

Farming is a chunk of the game, but it is hyper specific to where it isn't "normal gameplay" as intended. It's almost like the opposite of a pylon test in that sense lol.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Galaxy Brain

[Infinitum]

6 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Farming is a chunk of the game, but it is hyper specific to where it isn't "normal gameplay" as intended. It's almost like the opposite of a pylon test in that sense lol.

Well i dont know about that, its more normal than a pylon test IMO, because you dont go into normal missions and face spawns of pylons.

[Hopeling]

Part of the reason I don't want a thing that involves a second player is that it means I probably can't contribute to testing. I don't have a reliable second player, and my schedule is erratic.

 

I'm not sure no inspirations is a fair condition if we're trying to represent normal gameplay. For example, Super Reflexes and Shield Defense look a LOT worse without inspirations, because they have absolutely no healing or endurance recovery, rather than having it in limited but nonzero amounts from consumables. But I can go with no inspirations as the default test condition if that's what the consensus is.

2 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Well i dont know about that, its more normal than a pylon test IMO, because you dont go into normal missions and face spawns of pylons.

No, but you do face AVs.

 

I mean, you don't face them often, but the subset of people who came up with pylon tests did. The whole reason that pylon tests became popular is because Scrappers (and some others, but the pylon thread was always a Scrapper board thing) wanted to see if they could solo AVs under challenge conditions, and a pylon has about the same HP and regen as an archvillain, so it made a reasonable measuring stick or dry run for comparing builds and attack chains. Pylons really are reasonably representative of the amount of DPS you can do in an AV fight.

 

Likewise, that's why the default test condition for pylons is "no inspirations, no temporary powers". It's not that nobody wants to know how much DPS inspirations or temporary powers are worth. It's that AV hunting was the thing people did for fun and bragging rights, and AV hunting with inspirations and/or temporary powers was already pretty easy, while AV hunting without them was still a challenge, so that became the standard.

 

If we're measuring under farming conditions, we're only going to find out which sets are the best at farming. I don't think the answer there is going to surprise anybody: it's Spines, followed closely by SS and Rad. But that doesn't tell us much about regular content.

[Haijinx]

Brutes damage is more variable than scrappers and tankers.  So they might need more runs to average.

 

Tankers would be the least variable.  But if you use the test server their AOE is widely different than the other 2.

 

Scrappers with ATOs would be more variable than without.

[Steampunkette]

14 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

Part of the reason I don't want a thing that involves a second player is that it means I probably can't contribute to testing. I don't have a reliable second player, and my schedule is erratic.

 

I'm not sure no inspirations is a fair condition if we're trying to represent normal gameplay. For example, Super Reflexes and Shield Defense look a LOT worse without inspirations, because they have absolutely no healing or endurance recovery, rather than having it in limited but nonzero amounts from consumables. But I can go with no inspirations as the default test condition if that's what the consensus is.

No, but you do face AVs.

 

I mean, you don't face them often, but the subset of people who came up with pylon tests did. The whole reason that pylon tests became popular is because Scrappers (and some others, but the pylon thread was always a Scrapper board thing) wanted to see if they could solo AVs under challenge conditions, and a pylon has about the same HP and regen as an archvillain, so it made a reasonable measuring stick or dry run for comparing builds and attack chains. Pylons really are reasonably representative of the amount of DPS you can do in an AV fight.

 

Likewise, that's why the default test condition for pylons is "no inspirations, no temporary powers". It's not that nobody wants to know how much DPS inspirations or temporary powers are worth. It's that AV hunting was the thing people did for fun and bragging rights, and AV hunting with inspirations and/or temporary powers was already pretty easy, while AV hunting without them was still a challenge, so that became the standard.

 

If we're measuring under farming conditions, we're only going to find out which sets are the best at farming. I don't think the answer there is going to surprise anybody: it's Spines, followed closely by SS and Rad. But that doesn't tell us much about regular content.

We're not trying to represent the Defensive Power of these powersets. We're trying to ascertain their primary combat capabilities. DPS, Average time to Kill, things like that. We should use minimally effective custom NPCs because we're not trying to test a player's ability to run away and recover or pop a tray of inspirations or use temp powers or any of that.

 

We're testing the capabilities of the Attack Powersets.

 

It's true that Brute Damage is more variable than a Tanker's, but a Brute's ramp up should be 'about' the same for any given test, since they'll be on SOs it's unlikely to get above the 70-75% degree. Less so with an x4 group sizing.

 

As to the Blaster PC: We can just dual-box a second account, follow, autofire Energy Torrent. Every 12 seconds the placement of enemies will change is the result of that method.

[Infinitum]

17 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

Part of the reason I don't want a thing that involves a second player is that it means I probably can't contribute to testing. I don't have a reliable second player, and my schedule is erratic.

 

I'm not sure no inspirations is a fair condition if we're trying to represent normal gameplay. For example, Super Reflexes and Shield Defense look a LOT worse without inspirations, because they have absolutely no healing or endurance recovery, rather than having it in limited but nonzero amounts from consumables. But I can go with no inspirations as the default test condition if that's what the consensus is.

No, but you do face AVs.

 

I mean, you don't face them often, but the subset of people who came up with pylon tests did. The whole reason that pylon tests became popular is because Scrappers (and some others, but the pylon thread was always a Scrapper board thing) wanted to see if they could solo AVs under challenge conditions, and a pylon has about the same HP and regen as an archvillain, so it made a reasonable measuring stick or dry run for comparing builds and attack chains. Pylons really are reasonably representative of the amount of DPS you can do in an AV fight.

 

Likewise, that's why the default test condition for pylons is "no inspirations, no temporary powers". It's not that nobody wants to know how much DPS inspirations or temporary powers are worth. It's that AV hunting was the thing people did for fun and bragging rights, and AV hunting with inspirations and/or temporary powers was already pretty easy, while AV hunting without them was still a challenge, so that became the standard.

 

If we're measuring under farming conditions, we're only going to find out which sets are the best at farming. I don't think the answer there is going to surprise anybody: it's Spines, followed closely by SS and Rad. But that doesn't tell us much about regular content.

Not having the testing material shouldnt invalidate the test.

 

Throw spines out then, well maybe put an asterisk beside it at least.  I'm that still boggles me why everyone says spines is the best at farming, but TW is more OP, but usnt as good at farming?  Farming isnt too different than normal gameplay, in fact its a condensed versionof it - more enemies, and variables and faster so it should yield similar results to normal gameplay.

[Haijinx]

Is spines the best at farming becuase it farms fastest, or is it the best because it simply farms fast and is much more user friendly since you are running two damage auras.

[Steampunkette]

1 minute ago, Haijinx said:

Is spines the best at farming becuase it farms fastest, or is it the best because it simply farms fast and is much more user friendly since you are running two damage auras.

There's that... but it's also a matter of using a scalpel to cut your steak.

 

Just because it's designed to cut through cleanly doesn't mean it's the most efficient.

 

TW has high end costs where Spines doesn't. And those damage auras can be loaded up with a -mess- of Procs for more automatic damage without a player even touching the keys.

[Hopeling]

14 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

I'm that still boggles me why everyone says spines is the best at farming, but TW is more OP, but usnt as good at farming?

I don't understand what there is to be confused about. People think TW is better than Spines in normal gameplay, but not better at farming. This is not a contradiction. It's exactly the same argument as you saying that TW is great on pylons but not in normal gameplay. We're trying to get metrics that more closely correspond to normal gameplay, rather than only using extremely limited metrics like pylons or farming.

7 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Is spines the best at farming becuase it farms fastest, or is it the best because it simply farms fast and is much more user friendly since you are running two damage auras.

The meta farming build used to be SS/Fire, which doesn't have a second aura and isn't especially user-friendly because you have to manage crashes. With the rage crash -def now unavoidable, Spines seems to be the next-best thing. Its popularity over, say, Rad/Fire can also be partly attributed to the fact that some people wrote very popular guides about it shortly after Homecoming first appeared.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Hopeling

[Haijinx]

Yeah i think its a time and key punch thing.

 

TW might even farm faster on small maps but i expect it would be a chore.

[Indystruck]

I use TW/Fire for farming, personally. Spines is alot less involved, TW is more active, which I like. Good AoE damage, great ST to murder the bosses. Easy to fit in a few different -res procs ontop of it. I just personally don't find Spines terribly engaging, more power to the folks that do.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Indystruck

[Infinitum]

16 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

I don't understand what there is to be confused about. People think TW is better than Spines in normal gameplay, but not better at farming. This is not a contradiction. It's exactly the same argument as you saying that TW is great on pylons but not in normal gameplay. We're trying to get metrics that more closely correspond to normal gameplay, rather than only using extremely limited metrics like pylons or farming.

The meta farming build used to be SS/Fire, which doesn't have a second aura and isn't especially user-friendly because you have to manage crashes. With the rage crash -def now unavoidable, Spines seems to be the next-best thing. Its popularity over, say, Rad/Fire can also be partly attributed to the fact that some people wrote very popular guides about it shortly after Homecoming first appeared.

Sorry, but farming is a lot closer to normal gameplay especially on the outdoor maps with EBs than pylon tests are.

 

But none of that matters, this is a rabbit trail based on perceptions.

 

I'll let this one go.

[Infinitum]

14 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Yeah i think its a time and key punch thing.

 

TW might even farm faster on small maps but i expect it would be a chore.

Yeah it is, done it before.

[Hopeling]

18 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Sorry, but farming is a lot closer to normal gameplay especially on the outdoor maps with EBs than pylon tests are.

 

But none of that matters, this is a rabbit trail based on perceptions.

 

I'll let this one go.

Right, I'm not saying that pylons are a better metric than farming overall. I'm saying that neither pylons nor farming are good examples of normal gameplay. Farming is maybe less dissimilar, but still not very similar: you get a fuckton of inspirations, you have an insane saturation of enemies, you have no disruption from teammates. That's why we're trying to come up with another metric.

[Infinitum]

4 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

Right, I'm not saying that pylons are a better metric than farming overall. I'm saying that neither pylons nor farming are good examples of normal gameplay. Farming is maybe less dissimilar, but still not very similar: you get a fuckton of inspirations, you have an insane saturation of enemies, you have no disruption from teammates. That's why we're trying to come up with another metric.

But if you were partnered with a blaster with KB on an outdoor map it would meet all the criteria.

 

The outdoor comicon maps are just like the Jamison Park outdoor maps from Tina Mac and Maria.

 

Only thing its missing is different damage types, but that shouldn't matter because we aren't testing resistance.

 

There should be some other way to test the different Attack set damage types against various enemy group resists though.  That needs to be factored in as well.

 

Inspirations shouldn't be used IMO for a good baseline.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Infinitum

[Galaxy Brain]

If we wanna do pure average, we should refer to that chart floating around of all the resists and apply that based on commonality/ max res

[Hopeling]

29 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

But if you were partnered with a blaster with KB on an outdoor map it would meet all the criteria.

 

The outdoor comicon maps are just like the Jamison Park outdoor maps from Tina Mac and Maria.

Ah, maybe we're talking past each other. The Jamison Park map seems more or less fine. I was talking about the asteroid map with all the patrols, where you can routinely have multiple times the aggro cap.