Feedback: Testing Melee Set Performance

[Hopeling]

11 minutes ago, TheAdjustor said:

If it's not kosher it's at least treif.

I'm happy to make x8 one of the test conditions, but for now I'd prefer to avoid herding on x3. Both may be useful, but I expect the second to favor AoE attacks much more, while we're trying to get a metric where both AoE and ST are important.

Edited September 18, 2019 by Hopeling

[TheAdjustor]

34 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

I'm happy to make x8 a second test condition, but for now I'd prefer to avoid herding on x3. Both may be useful, but I expect the second to favor AoE attacks much more, while we're trying to get a metric where both AoE and ST are important.

Fair enough, not to keep reiterating this but it needs to be said, any testing protocol will only tell you things it's designed to test. Most of the regular game play(regular = full team)  in the game does tend to be AoE fests especially after the Paragon Studios developers had their war on Fed Ex missions the you could run for merits.

 

Taking the ITF as an example

1st mission you have a bunch of hostages that are surrounded by full size spawns that need to be killed, and then you have a large spawn of Cimerorans in the temple that wind up getting killed and a spawn around the Oracle that need to be killed. Nothing particularly single target.

 

2nd Mission You have Nictus Crystal spawns and wandering Cims. The crystals are obviously single target tests, but the greater test here is, are you built well enough to survive the ambushes and continue to kill them.

 

3rd Mission: Kill the generals, Kill Requiem, Kill Romulus. Here the big single target item is the Romulus Phalanx Control.  Usual way to deal with it seems to be grab Romulus, Requiem and whoever else wants to come down and AOE them and the computer to death all together.  Being able to survive groups of EBs is something of the challenge here.

 

4th mission: Kill Romulus 3 times (not really) and then kill 200 Cims.: Funny enough the fastest I have ever seen that go, was the one time we had Ice/Cold corruptor on the team who debuffed everything so hard and then dropped blizzard on the spawn, that not only did everything die, everything died so close together in time that Romulus never rezzed.  Killing 200 Cims is obviously a test of AOE and are your teams builds strong enough to allow you to split up and kill on your own.

 

The game really is geared to gathering up large groups and arresting them with extreme prejudice. While single hard targets can and do form bottlenecks they are usually handled by teams

 

Edited September 18, 2019 by TheAdjustor

[Hopeling]

17 minutes ago, TheAdjustor said:

Most of the regular game play(regular = full team)  in the game does tend to be AoE fests

Absolutely, but on a team you also have to "share" those targets with teammates.

 

I mean, I agree that AoE is more important overall in this game than ST is. I just don't want the test to skew so hard that way that it turns into a farm map; Spines and Electric Melee do great there, but not so great in an office map where they can't easily drag the bosses into the next mob.

 

In fact, maybe I should just change it to an office map, or something else where spawns are a little more spread out. Then you can still herd if you want to, but it won't be a clearly dominant strategy.

[DSorrow]

2 hours ago, Vayek said:

They get unhappy because people like you subscribe to the backwards idea that just because something is good, it must be made bad so other things wont seem as bad.

I don't know how many times this has to be repeated in this thread, but nobody wants to make TW bad. These kinds of appeals to motive only serve to distract from the discussion anyway, so if you have any actual arguments for why TW isn't overpowered or you want to contribute to the testing where we're trying to provide data, please do that instead. If your argument is that every set besides TW is underperforming, collect and present evidence for that. Resorting to fallacious arguments and attacking the arguers instead of the argument if anything is a waste of everyone's time and serves absolutely no purpose other than creating a toxic environment.

 

I can probably speak for everyone in the thread that it's fine that TW is a good set, but some of us also share the sentiment that no set should be its own tier of good (or bad for that matter). Out of all the games I've played, none have had a successful strategy of "just buff everything" because at some point you either end up with everything being so powerful it's impossible to make good content or you have to buff the enemies which is essentially a nerf to everything for the players. The most successful strategy I've seen is sensible adjustments (both buffs and nerfs) before things get out of whack. Drastic nerfs are what's bad, slightly adjusting the "best set by a significant margin" to only be "the best set" is just reasonable.

 

For now, I'll wait and see what the test results show. If they show that TW is consistently 1-2 mins ahead of every set, then that's a pretty big gap considering the time scale, especially when clearing missions isn't the only thing TW is good at. If we're looking at 2 mins vs. the bottom of the barrel and less than a minute against the middle and top of the pack, then nothing needs to be done to TW and attention should be diverted to looking at what could be done to the bottom performers. 

[DSorrow]

I'm not going to hesitate to call out an un-argument when I see one. If you have actual evidence of why bringing TW in line with other sets would be bad or TW already being within a reasonable range of performance of other sets and toning it down would make it an underperformer, you're welcome to post that. Because it seems that I have to repeat myself, trying to create a toxic environment by posting speculation to other people's motives like this doesn't contribute to anything.

Edited September 18, 2019 by DSorrow
wording

[Infinitum]

7 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

I'm not going to hesitate to call out an un-argument when I see one. If you have actual evidence of why bringing TW in line with other sets would be bad or TW already being within a reasonable range of performance of other sets and toning it down would make it an underperformer, you're welcome to post that. Because it seems that I have to repeat myself, trying to create a toxic environment by posting speculation to other people's motives like this doesn't contribute to anything but polarizing the discussion and creating a toxic environment.

I thought we already decided that if it was within a reasonable range it wouldn't need toning down.

 

Motives do matter also, to pretend like they dont is naive at best.

Edited September 18, 2019 by Infinitum

[Infinitum]

For instance, there was much butthurt surrounding EM back when that fiasco went down, and a lot of the butthurt ones are who ultimately brought it down.

 

We would by lying to ourselves if we said it wasn't in some part the same about TW.

 

Me, I just don't want sweeping downward changes to melee.  If changes are needed it needs to be upward maybe not to top tier or above levels but upward then revisited later.

 

I think a big problem is we don't know what the target balance point is or should be.  No doubt TW is top shelf, but with a ton of drawbacks built into it.  I think there are 3 or 4 up there with it though - from a brute perspective.

 

Just out of curiosity, how accurate is the dps analyzer in mids?

 

Btw. Haven't been posting as much because I have a sick kid at home, and im also having a UC flare, I'm not abandoning this topic and will help as much as I can, but I really don't feel well right now, so, sorry about that.

Edited September 18, 2019 by Infinitum

[DSorrow]

17 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

I thought we already decided that if it wad within a reasonable range it wouldn't need toning down.

And I don't disagree with that, I just didn't think it needed repeating because I just literally wrote that in the post preceding the bumper sticker:

 

6 hours ago, DSorrow said:

If we're looking at 2 mins vs. the bottom of the barrel and less than a minute against the middle and top of the pack, then nothing needs to be done to TW and attention should be diverted to looking at what could be done to the bottom performers. 

 

What we currently have is some evidence that TW appears to be overperforming which indicates that it maybe should be toned down. We are gathering further evidence to determine whether this is also the case outside of some very clinical settings. If the new tests produce results that say TW is within a reasonable range of other sets, then that would be evidence that toning it down would probably be a bad idea, because tests in an environment that better represent the average game should have more weight than tests such as pylon times. If there's some other evidence, I'd definitely want to see that.

 

However, stating that toning TW down is killing the game or sinking the ship without any evidence just skips a whole bunch of steps that should be taken to arrive to that conclusion. Not to mention that speculating about motives of the arguer rather than discussing the actual arguments is just poor form on its own. It's also extremely unconstructive to categorically shoot down any test settings because they aren't perfect rather than contribute to designing a test that is satisfactory.

 

I don't take issue with either outcome if it is reached by sound arguments because I like TW in its current form, but because game balance is an important factor to me I'd be demonstrating cognitive dissonance to allow TW to continue existing like it is if it can be shown that it is overperforming. "It's ok that set X is an outlier" is mutually exclusive with "balance is important", after all. What I do take issue with is an argumentative style that is built on ad hominems, strawmen, red herrings, hyperbole and other rhetoric devices used to avoid directly addressing any points that are opposite to the arguer's stance.  

[Hero Star]

"When everyone's super, no one will be."

[Infinitum]

4 minutes ago, Hero Star said:

"When everyone's super, no one will be."

Unless its a game where you are supposed to be, and also at varying levels of being super and capable of doing it at least a thousand times anyway you choose.  Super, not as super, most super, totally overpowered, no toggles, Ill advised designs.

 

There js no excuse for having any issue in this game, because you are in the drivers seat.

 

Lile the people wanting to take dbl xp away, why?  You do t like it dont take it.  Dont take it away from people that like it.

Edited September 18, 2019 by Infinitum

[Hopeling]

25 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Me, I just don't want sweeping downward changes to melee.  If changes are needed it needs to be upward maybe not to top tier or above levels but upward then revisited later.

 

I think a big problem is we don't know what the target balance point is or should be.  No doubt TW is top shelf, but with a ton of drawbacks built into it.  I think there are 3 or 4 up there with it though - from a brute perspective.

I don't think anybody wants that. Earlier in the thread, for example, GM Sijin said that "The majority of those who have expressed an interest in reducing TW's performance have clearly been very wary of over adjusting it. You can bet Captain Powerhouse [the dev who would be making any adjustment] will be doubly so."

 

Hopefully, these tests will allow us to figure out where the balance point is. I expect to find some clustering, because like you say, there are a bunch of sets that all seem to be about equally great. But if that cluster is around 6:30 along with TW, that indicates something different than if the band is at 7:45.

21 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Just out of curiosity, how accurate is the dps analyzer in mids?

To my knowledge, it is potentially unreliable - I've seen people cite numbers from it that were clearly not plausible (eg, 400 DPS with an attack chain in which every power dealt <400 damage and took >1 second). I haven't used it enough to say exactly how it becomes inaccurate though. So, it may be useful, but apply a sanity check to whatever it calculates.

25 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Btw. Haven't been posting as much because I have a sick kid at home, and im also having a UC flare, I'm not abandoning this topic and will help as much as I can, but I really don't feel well right now, so, sorry about that.

No problem. Get well soon. I appreciate your participation; the fact that you've been on board with our protocol tells me that we're probably doing something useful instead of just gathering garbage data.

[TheAdjustor]

1 hour ago, Infinitum said:

I thought we already decided that if it was within a reasonable range it wouldn't need toning down.

 

Motives do matter also, to pretend like they dont is naive at best.

The problem is the "reasonable range" is moving.  40% or so "over performance"  is now down to 6:30 vs  7:10 in a test that favors titan weapons (secondary with good endurance recovery, enemies that make it easy to maintain momentum and don't provide much of distraction from monitoring momentum)

 

I was thinking about this test and then thought man this is kind of thing that put blasters in such a bad place.  Even an assault rifle blaster could wreck this map far faster than any TW combination. The conclusion of course would be Nerf Assault Rifle !!!!

 

 

[Infinitum]

Just now, TheAdjustor said:

The problem is the "reasonable range" is moving.  40% or so "over performance"  is now down to 6:30 vs  7:10 in a test that favors titan weapons (secondary with good endurance recovery, enemies that make it easy to maintain momentum and don't provide much of distraction from monitoring momentum)

 

I was thinking about this test and then thought man this is kind of thing that put blasters in such a bad place.  Even an assault rifle blaster could wreck this map far faster than any TW combination. The conclusion of course would be Nerf Assault Rifle !!!!

 

 

i wouldnt call that overperforming at all though.

 

I missed that part, where did the 7:10 come from?

[Hopeling]

1 minute ago, TheAdjustor said:

The problem is the "reasonable range" is moving.  40% or so "over performance"  is now down to 6:30 vs  7:10 in a test that favors titan weapons (secondary with good endurance recovery, enemies that make it easy to maintain momentum and don't provide much of distraction from monitoring momentum)

Literally nobody has said that this indicates over-performance. It is wildly premature to draw conclusions from 3 data points under a single test condition.

[Hopeling]

6 minutes ago, Vayek said:

Titan Weapons is well balanced with its limitations vrs strengths.

Great! If that's true, it will show up in the data. If it isn't, we'll still get a bunch of useful quantitative comparisons of every melee set under a variety of conditions. Even aside from any possible balance adjustments, players are very interested in that kind of thing, so this is worth doing.

6 minutes ago, Vayek said:

How about just stop complaining for the sake of complaining and just enjoy the game? If you don't like something, don't play it.

Seriously, just stop. The only one complaining here is you. The rest of us are testing.

Edited September 18, 2019 by Hopeling

[TheAdjustor]

12 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

i wouldnt call that overperforming at all though.

 

I missed that part, where did the 7:10 come from?

The 7:10 was my time using War Mace.   I considered it a good choice as it has straight up the easiest rotations in the game. I set up my power tray as

1: Whirling Mace

2: Crowd Countrol

3: Shatter

Shift 1: Clobber

Shift 2: Pulverize

 

And just went to town with 123,123, 123.  I could probably do better with a different keybinding for my targeting as I have it set up to target nearest not next at the moment. I could also probably do better by turning on sprint, and slotting swift and hurdle since sprint/CJ are the only two movement powers allowed.

Edited September 18, 2019 by TheAdjustor

[TheAdjustor]

4 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

Literally nobody has said that this indicates over-performance. It is wildly premature to draw conclusions from 3 data points under a single test condition.

Well and good then.

[Infinitum]

I'm going to test psi melee with wp and invul on a scrapper tomorrow, its my day off.

 

Can you give me specifics on how we are slotting stuff like stamina and health power pools etc.

[Infinitum]

I will post a screenshot of my slotting to see if its acceptable before I do anything though.

 

Also what is the ae map number?

Edited September 18, 2019 by Infinitum

[Hopeling]

4 hours ago, Infinitum said:

I'm going to test psi melee with wp and invul on a scrapper tomorrow, its my day off.

 

Can you give me specifics on how we are slotting stuff like stamina and health power pools etc.

4 hours ago, Infinitum said:

I will post a screenshot of my slotting to see if its acceptable before I do anything though.

 

Also what is the ae map number?

Thanks! Psi Melee is one of the sets I haven't played, so I was going to ask for help with it since I have no idea how to use it correctly.

 

I put 3 slots in Stamina and Quick Recovery, 4 slots in my toggles (1 endredux + 3 heal/def/res or whatever), and just the base slot in Sprint/Swift/Hurdle/Health. Ultimately I don't think defensive slotting is going to matter a lot, because you shouldn't be in any serious danger of dying.

 

After discussing with @TheAdjustor about the herding thing, I actually unpublished the asteroid map, and made a different map that doesn't favor herding quite so heavily. It also fixes a couple other issues with the asteroid map: the asteroid had no variation in enemy level (most missions have a mix of +0 and +1), and that "hidden" plateau was a stumbling block. The new arc is ID 15873 and takes place on a warehouse map.

 

Since this is a different map, that means my times from yesterday have to be thrown out; I'll re-test on the new map today.

Edited September 18, 2019 by Hopeling

[Hopeling]

7 minutes ago, Vayek said:

Definitive proof that Titan weapons is too strong for a melee powerset since melee sets must always be the weakest damage in the game! *he said with a deeply sarcastic and belittling voice*

 

https://thehardtimes.net/harddrive/man-wins-yet-another-round-of-laser-tag-using-only-melee-attacks/

Vayek, seriously, what on Earth do you think you're accomplishing here? A GM specifically asked us to do this testing. This is not a TW vendetta. This is testing.

 

If you want to participate in the process, you're welcome to. If you have some specific criticism of our methodology, say so, and we can discuss it. But if you're just going to throw around strawmen and fail to respond to any of the things anybody has actually said, we're basically just going to continue ignoring you.

[Infinitum]

4 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

Vayek, seriously, what on Earth do you think you're accomplishing here? A GM specifically asked us to do this testing. This is not a TW vendetta. This is testing.

 

If you want to participate in the process, you're welcome to. If you have some specific criticism of our methodology, say so, and we can discuss it. But if you're just going to throw around strawmen and fail to respond to any of the things anybody has actually said, we're basically just going to continue ignoring you.

Their opinion matters also though, a lot of us have been burned badly by nerfs in the past, unjustified ones IMO so you have to meet their opinion half way at and least understand why.

 

There is reason behind them and I get it.

 

Thats why this has to be tested till we are blue in the face to make sure its not a knee jerk in any direction.

[Infinitum]

19 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

Thanks! Psi Melee is one of the sets I haven't played, so I was going to ask for help with it since I have no idea how to use it correctly.

 

I put 3 slots in Stamina and Quick Recovery, 4 slots in my toggles (1 endredux + 3 heal/def/res or whatever), and just the base slot in Sprint/Swift/Hurdle/Health. Ultimately I don't think defensive slotting is going to matter a lot, because you shouldn't be in any serious danger of dying.

 

After discussing with @TheAdjustor about the herding thing, I actually unpublished the asteroid map, and made a different map that doesn't favor herding quite so heavily. It also fixes a couple other issues with the asteroid map: the asteroid had no variation in enemy level (most missions have a mix of +0 and +1), and that "hidden" plateau was a stumbling block. The new arc is ID 15849 and takes place on a warehouse map.

 

Since this is a different map, that means my times from yesterday have to be thrown out; I'll re-test on the new map today.

Psi melee is mah thang.  lol im just hoping I do t get it nerfed by doing these tests.  I think id probably puke.

[DSorrow]

1 hour ago, Vayek said:

It's just PVE. Your entire argument here is 100% predicated on the notion "You hit that enemy harder than I did. I can't let that stand!"

Ah, a double whammy of argument from dismissal and psychogenetic fallacy. Even more funny, the latter is not only an un-argument but not even what I think so I'm hoping this is just benign ignorance and not a malicious attempt at misrepresenting my argument in order to poison the well.

 

Just in case you're genuinely confused, my argument is based on the following:

• balance is important
• balance requires parity between the sets

If a lack of parity can be demonstrated, then the current devs should take measures to restore balance.

 

My argument is not "I'm jelly of TW's performance so nuke it like EM" (like I've stated several times and as it says on my signature, I play TW so it wouldn't even make sense to be jealous of my own character).

 

1 hour ago, Vayek said:

Get over it already.

Yet another argument from dismissal.

 

1 hour ago, Vayek said:

Titan Weapons is well balanced with its limitations vrs strengths.

And why do you think that is? It has good DPA even without Momentum. It gets 10-40% extra damage on literally every attack. It also happens to get extremely good soft control. It has virtually identical DPE with sets like War Mace, but with Momentum it gets the opportunity to turn Endurance into damage even faster than other sets, which is not a downside. It's a bit of a stretch to call it a huge downside you have to be a bit mindful of your endurance usage and I can agree that the Momentum system is "clunky", but if you space out your attacks you'll end up with similar EPS and DPS to most other sets. I'm not against TW getting something extra for clunkyness, but I think we have pretty strong indication it gets a bit too much.

 

I'll happily wait for the test results to see if the opportunity to turn blue bar into damage numbers materializes in a significant way, but based on the numbers and my own experience with TW I have pretty good reason to believe it does. But just to reiterate, just because I think it might warrant some toning down I don't want TW getting the EM treatment.

 

So to ask again, why do you think it is balanced within its limitations vs strengths? I'd appreciate it if you could argue this position without resorting to ad hominems or just straight up not addressing the points contrary to your stance. I hate to say it, but if your position is based on dismissing all counter-arguments and trying to discredit the arguer, then maybe your position isn't very strong.

 

1 hour ago, Vayek said:

If you don't like something, don't play it.

Third time's the charm? Nah. Besides, I enjoy playing TW and I have a hard time imagining a slight adjustment such as getting rid of the DoTs (if shown to be justified) would affect my enjoyment.

Edited September 18, 2019 by DSorrow

[Hopeling]

4 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Also what is the ae map number?

By the way, if you're doing this on Pineapple, the arc ID is 3281.

Edited September 18, 2019 by Hopeling