Feedback: Testing Melee Set Performance

[Infinitum]

3 hours ago, Morgrum said:

Jesus Christ this trend is still going?

Ok ya'll know what I am to old to care about what anyone thinks about me so let me tell it to you straight.

You are a bunch of children crying because you think someone else's toy is better.

You could instead of going hey lets help out the rest of the sets and bring them up to a better standard.

But nope you try to common core everything down then you cry that that makes the game to easy if it isnt.

No it does not IO's and Incarnate levels make the game easier.

If you do not want the game to be easy don't use them then increase your level and team size and stop trying to punish the rest of us.

I for one play this game as a fun experience I do not want this game to go back to what it was at release because that was a miserable experience.

The devs do not want us to grind through that type of experience either because we get double experience if we want and we aren't forced to go on miserable raid after miserable raid to unlock our incarnate levels.

 

I am not built to do the insane things some folks have done since I am a Tanker and I enjoy grouping with my Coalition.

Guess what those few folks who build those extreme builds might just enjoy doing what they are doing.

Instead of going wow that's cool but not for me you point fingers and cry foul foul foul!

You haven't once spoken about the Blasters who Solo master ITF's, or the Masterminds/Controllers who go around ruining GM's and task forces by themselves. 

This is exactly the same type of conversations that happened which killed EM.

You folks are exactly the type of folks who kept posting numbers because they were not happy that others were happy.

It is nothing but vindictive jealousy on what a few folks have done so you want to blanket punish everyone who uses a set.

 

So how about you play the game as you want and leave the rest of us alone.

How about you start new postings such as Dual Blades how can we help the set or Katana needs these improvements

Because if you had your way and the game became an unfun experience again myself and other casual players like myself who are vast amount of players btw will leave.

This is an old game with a nostalgic feeling to it but I for one will drop it immediately if the Dev's go your route and try to make a second job again; and you can bet others would do the same.

Then you can enjoy trying desperately to run the content that you wanted to be harder in leagues you cannot fill.

 

Infinitum stop posting man just let them continue here on their own and beat their chest until the get TW's nerfed into oblivion.

After which they will start on the next set which they do not like and push for nerfs on them and continue on until they are the only ones left on these servers.

They are miserable people let them be miserable without your comments to give them a chance to beat their chest and act superior to you in replies because they do not like something.

Im like a human RIck Roll I never give up.

[Infinitum]

2 minutes ago, Megajoule said:

No, raising the other sets to match is NOT the same thing.  It leads to power creep.  Are you familiar with the term?

Screw power creep, thats another cry baby tactic that really dont exist for 99 % of the game.  Ive never once ran across someone in game that left disgusted because we beat a mob too fast.  Just go away wiht that crap  lol  im not buying that.

 

Before that it took 2 hours to beat a GM unless you had a rad on your team.  you want that again?  Nobody i play with does.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Infinitum

[Infinitum]

Power Creep is becoming one of the most overused phrases on here that really describes only what the person wielding it wants it to describe.

 

There is no way to qualify or quantify it. Only what axe you want to grind with it.

 

If you were really worried about power creep go to the Controller or Dominator forums and light a match there.

 

That creep of power has been going on since before EM was nerfed.

 

Melee finally is getting parity with that and you want to knock it down a peg agian.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Infinitum

[Indystruck]

11 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Screw power creep, thats another cry baby tactic that really dont exist for 99 % of the game.  Ive never once ran across someone in game that left disgusted because we beat a mob too fast.  Just go away wiht that crap  lol  im not buying that.

 

Before that it took 2 hours to beat a GM unless you had a rad on your team.  you want that again?  Nobody i play with does.

 

I think someone's just starting to make things up wholesale in the face of, you know, factual statements. Well, "starting to" might be a tad generous.

[Infinitum]

2 minutes ago, Indystruck said:

 

I think someone's just starting to make things up wholesale in the face of, you know, factual statements. Well, "starting to" might be a tad generous.

No actually im not, nobody i team with every night, hours at a time, even when i have pickups for I trials says "dang i cant go on, this power creep is too much.... AVENGE ME nerf some sets."

[Indystruck]

11 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

No actually im not, nobody i team with every night, hours at a time, even when i have pickups for I trials says "dang i cant go on, this power creep is too much.... AVENGE ME nerf some sets."

 

Ah, the two hours to fight a GM must've just included the time being the charmer that you are to form a team.

[Infinitum]

6 minutes ago, Indystruck said:

 

Ah, the two hours to fight a GM must've just included the time being the charmer that you are to form a team.

Well you won the internet with that witty post.

[Galaxy Brain]

Power creep is bad because it makes everything else snowball in the long term. Everything gets better, the game gets easier and more stale, the game is adjusted with new challenges fitting for the new stuff, old stuff is left behind (on live this was more due to time investment of going back to old sets vs making new shinies for getting new customers / cash shop), rinse repeat.

 

If we wanna talk support / controllers, look at Dark Control or Time Manip / Nature vs older sets. Its clear that those sets are a cut above most others in their class, I mean Time Manip can invalidate FF as a set with 1 power that also affects the character using it. This is from raw Defense, but also on top of everything else Time gives. Or even say, how Water Blast has been amazing out of the gate, etc.

 

Back to the topic at hand though, lets say that we do find that TW is over performing by X value. Instead of toning TW down by X value, we instead boost all other sets up to be within that margin. This is not only a lot more work to do, but it comes with two problems:

1. How do we boost the sets by X? A raw damage buff will go against the design philosophy where damage is tied to recharge primarily. If we just flat out make other melees hit harder but recharge slower that may be a lot of jank. 
2. If we manage to boost all sets by X to close the gap, it does not fix the true under performers as they usually have fundamental flaws with them, so they will need 2 rounds of tweaks between the "universal melee boost" and "underperformer revamp".

I'd love to revamp older / worse off sets. But, it is a ton of work to do that and its just complex with all the other interactions in the game... vs potentially tweaking one set.

[GM Sijin]

7 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I really think we need some way to look at a gambit of tests to compare sets in different areas at a basic level to get a good feel for how they perform in general. IOs / etc would just be outside sources and are too varied to consider without getting the baselines IMO.

I believe this is where focus needs to be for any progress at this point. Further discussion outside of this direction is likely to continue to be circular and generally nonproductive.

 

This is considerable work, but that should be required for any negative adjustment to an entire powerset. The analysis could also be used to help identify where other sets may need some help.

 

What happened to Energy Melee should not be used as a shield against future adjustments, it's a cautionary tale. 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 will be doubly so.

[Sniktch]

As an addendum:  To those declaring "just buff everyone else!", an anecdote.

 

Warframe.  Was a founder, played constantly up through the "open world" update where due to some iffy optimization the new area - which was hard-walked into further game progression - was literally unplayable from a mechanical perspective for me.  Haven't played it since, for a variety of reasons.  When it went live, the devs definitely had a 'balance through buffing' mindset, and this lasted a good long while, until they ran into three hard walls they couldn't just buff the players past without actually breaking the game.

 

The first of these was the interaction of Rhino's Iron Skin ability in its launch form with the Energy Siphon Aura mod and the cost-reducing mod; at launch, Iron Skin made a Rhino flat-out INVINCIBLE for a fixed duration, at a one-time energy cost per use.  At that point, it was balanced - because there was a limited supply of energy innate, energy drops only came out of breakables which did not respawn, and the cost was high enough that to use it at all actually required the Rhino to use a mod that buffed their max energy or one that lowered the energy costs of all abilities.  Powerful, but had a hard limit per map of how long it could be used.  Then they made the Aura mods, including Energy Siphon.  Energy Siphon gave every player on the team energy-over-time.  Wanna take a guess where this is going?  Yup - combine the cost-reducer at max with four players running maxed Energy Siphons and a maxed Iron Skin, and Rhinos had effectively permanent invincibility.  A similar thing happened with Trinity and her Link ability.

 

Rhino was far and away my main frame in that game - despite having every single one available at that point, most of them in Prime, my most-played at the end was Rhino at over 50% of my time, and at this early point, it was probably over 90%.  I was still one of, possibly the first, to hit the forums and say "this is way too much".  I'm sure your response is "but you coulda just not used it!!1!" - technically true.  Being able to choose not to use a broken mechanic does not make it not a broken mechanic. 

 

Rhino was at that point the drop from the Venus boss - the third frame you could theoretically build.  If every new player walked in, cleared Mercury and Mars, then got Rhino, found this confluence, how quickly would it become the normal?  Human psychology is messy, ugly, and quite often counter-logical - the Blizzard rep who got fired for telling players "you don't want what you think you want" wasn't being an asshole, he was making the mistake of telling an actual, unhappy truth.

 

There was much raging and flaming and vitriol thrown, a lot of it so very reminiscent of what's being posted in this thread - do more data, don't take my shiny, it's just a game, me being god doesn't make others worthless, blah blah blah but but but. In the end, Rhino got reworked, several times, and the first was Iron Skin got nerfed.  It had to; if the devs had just buffed everyone else to that level, the game would have died post-haste.  Same thing happened to Trinity.  I wasn't happy with some of the iterations, and when I disagreed, I said so - but I accepted that something had to give, even if I didn't like the end result.  Because I was not the only person playing the game, and what was good for me was not necessarily good for other players, or the game as a whole.

 

I could go over the other hard-walls they hit, or digress into how the psychological impacts of such things being untouched for too long can be seen in the history of the character Ghor in the game Armello, but if what's here isn't enough, then nothing will be.  The math is crystal-clear - Titan Weapons, out of Momentum, does 10-44% damage too much per attack and pays nothing for greater-than-melee range, multiple secondary effects, and the speed-up of Momentum.  It can spend anywhere from 80 to 90% of its playtime in Momentum.  Something has to give.  At this point, you can accept that, and help shape the rebalance - or dig in your heels, venomize, circular-argue, and end up with Energy Melee mark 2.  I'd prefer the former, but it's not my choice.

[Galaxy Brain]

That is a really good anecdote @Sniktch. That is more or less an extreme version of power creep where an update made a strategy downright broken instead of just "incredibly good", but sometimes that happens unintentionally and the only healthy thing to do is dial back what ended up too powerful else the fun is compromised.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

But, as mentioned we don't have a good way to even see who or what is performing in what capacity in a "normal" environment. I can run scenarios on every primary, but to be fair I think they should all share the same secondary....

 

Shield is disingenuous for a global test as some sets just can't be used with it. So I'm going to take that out of the pool of 13 Scrapper secondaries for the moment.

 

Looking at the rest for a candidate of your "Average" secondary, I want to look into what the most common combat-related stat may be to make our pick. There are no secondaries that offer 0 offensive boosts, but the least impactful out of straight up attacks, damage auras, and recharge boosts must be End Management. 4/12 have a Quick Recovery type power, 4/12 have an End Drain, and 1/12 have a +End button. Overall 9/12 armor sets (with shield excluded) have some method of endurance management, making it a fair trait to have in a "real world" example. Of those 9, Willpower has the least extra effects that would effect combat such as damage auras, click powers, or other goodies. Luckily, WP is also one of the most popular armor picks period to further back it up as our secondary of choice:

 

 

I'll throw in Combat Jumping as that seems to be an incredibly common pick for nearly all melee players as well. With QR and Stamna 3 slotted, and all WP toggles + CJ running without End Redux (opting for 3 slotting relevant defensive stats, except CJ which gets 1 slot), WP will Recover 3.45 end/s, drain 0.9/s, for a net recovery of 2.55/s.

 

As for the tests to run through, we need something that mirrors normal content to a degree. A team environment is too chaotic to get real data from, despite having the varied enemies and large groups. There's just too many X factors. Solo at +0/x1 is far too easy.... but solo at +0/x3 seems about right. +0 gives us enemies that are either even-con or +1 level to the character, and x3 gives us groups between 5-10 enemies which is perfect for melee sets to dive into with their target caps.

 

Last night, I wanted to see if I could get a read on what a typical mission at this difficulty threw at you, so I went through 10 "Defeat the boss!" style radio missions at +0/x3 on my Claw/EA scrapper. This took me through Sewers, Labs, Office Buildings and Warehouses (luckily no caves...) which gave me varied encounters of different enemy types and group sizes, as well as group locations that were either very close or spread apart. Here is what I found:

 

• On average, there were about 10 groups of enemies per mission from start to finish (finding the group with the end boss).
• On average, timing between groups that were close enough to aggro both at once by accident and those that I needed to go to another room for, the time between groups was about 8 seconds. 
• There was approximately ~700 enemies I chewed through in these 10 missions, and I made sure to survey each spawn (EA's stealth helped here) to note what types of groups there where. On average, I saw the following:
  • About 30% of spawns were +1 lvl compared to +0, with no pattern of what types were +1
  • About 30% of spawns were groups of 5 Minions, and 2 LT's
  • About 20% of spawns were groups of 8 Minions, and 1 LT
  • About 20% of spawns were groups of 4 Minions, and 1 Boss
  • About 10% of spawns were groups of 10 minions
  • About 10% of spawns were groups of 3 Minions, and 3 LT's
  • About 10% of spawns were groups of 4 Minions, 1 LT, and 1 Boss (the last group)

 

Using these as data points, an average mission may look like this:

 

 

10 groups of enemies

8 sec of downtime in between groups

Every 3rd group is +1 level, making them 10% tougher in both damage taken and hit chance. 

The +1 groups are split between an ST focused boss spawn, a balanced spawn, and a very minion-heavy spawn.

Groups have various makeups based on my observation where some have smaller numbers but higher ranks, and vice versa. 

 

I tried to balance the encounters to have a bit of variety from group to group not to favor AoE or ST. Some groups have tons of minions that big AoEs will help against, while others have fewer, harder targets that ST attacks will likely help with.

 

That said, this is still a lot of enemies per group, so if we want to give an ST test we can add an 11th round with an Elite Boss spawn:

 

 

The final round gives a target for the more ST oriented sets to have a better data point as well, and I feel EB's are common enough in story-arc / TF gameplay to be a valid round in the test. 

 

My hope is that this could emulate a normal mission, and the goal will be to clear the groups as efficiently as possible which will test AoE and ST damage throughout the run. We have a +End power in play from WP, and in between groups the character should be able to recover 20.4 Endurance. For a benchmark on endurance management, how about we ad a caveat that the character should be able to move to the next group with over 40 endurance to use? They will need to wait to recover that much endurance (about 16 sec if they are at 0) before moving to the next group. 

 

Misses should be about 5% of the time, or 1 in 20 attacks. That would be a bit iffy to figure out... so maybe just reduce damage by 5%? A bit higher vs the +1's....

 

Using Scrappers as a base, they have 5% crit chance on minions, and 10% on LT's+. Over time this could be rounded out to 5% and 10% damage buffs respectively, canceling out the acc penalty over time on minions and providing a 5% boost on the LT's+.  Any noticeable changes to Accuracy and/or Criticals would need to be noted (else we elect to avoid crits). 

 

Thoughts?

 

 

Edited September 15, 2019 by Galaxy Brain

[Infinitum]

8 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Power creep is bad because it makes everything else snowball in the long term. Everything gets better, the game gets easier and more stale, the game is adjusted with new challenges fitting for the new stuff, old stuff is left behind (on live this was more due to time investment of going back to old sets vs making new shinies for getting new customers / cash shop), rinse repeat.

 

If we wanna talk support / controllers, look at Dark Control or Time Manip / Nature vs older sets. Its clear that those sets are a cut above most others in their class, I mean Time Manip can invalidate FF as a set with 1 power that also affects the character using it. This is from raw Defense, but also on top of everything else Time gives. Or even say, how Water Blast has been amazing out of the gate, etc.

 

Back to the topic at hand though, lets say that we do find that TW is over performing by X value. Instead of toning TW down by X value, we instead boost all other sets up to be within that margin. This is not only a lot more work to do, but it comes with two problems:

1. How do we boost the sets by X? A raw damage buff will go against the design philosophy where damage is tied to recharge primarily. If we just flat out make other melees hit harder but recharge slower that may be a lot of jank. 
2. If we manage to boost all sets by X to close the gap, it does not fix the true under performers as they usually have fundamental flaws with them, so they will need 2 rounds of tweaks between the "universal melee boost" and "underperformer revamp".

I'd love to revamp older / worse off sets. But, it is a ton of work to do that and its just complex with all the other interactions in the game... vs potentially tweaking one set.

There is nothing in my experience to suggest the game is stale, or would be if other sets were buffed.  They still need buffs regardless of what the TW standard is.  If anything it would probably contribute further to my altitis.

 

It's impossible to not have something that stands out - something will invariable always be at the top or the FOTM, but IMO TW doesnt stand out enough across the board in every situation without other sets needing an adjustment down also at that point, thats where I think this will head if other sets dont get the attention they need first.

 

Playing homecoming the first time several months ago what stood out was how much better melee as a whole was and how much more the balance of the game as a whole felt.

 

Once you get to top end regular content is kinda easy, but incarnate content can be tricky, but not overly difficult.  There are ways to make it overly difficult if that's what you are looking for.

 

Again, I think from looking at what homecoming is doing with tanks and what they have done so far, they will ultimately come to the right course of action.

[Galaxy Brain]

*bumping to say I made a massive edit to my last post regarding what could be a test used to compare melee sets

[Sniktch]

Theoretically sound, and if run on common 25 IOs, should give a good SO baseline for whatever level it's run at. 

 

As another aside note, Titan is not actually the only melee set that's 'off-formula' across the board.  Claws is as well - but you'll notice not many people think of Claws as too good.  For one, rather than buff the damage across the board, they set damage based on tier, then gave a rech/end discount.  For another, Claws has limited AoE - Spin and Shockwave, Eviscerate is a Golden Dragonfly/Headsplitter/Shadow Maul-esque 'cone in name only - and only has Build-Up in Stalker applications, which is obviously outside the convo as Titan isn't available to Stalkers.  For a third, Claws doesn't get the plethora of secondary effects - its only notables are Slash (-Def), Focus (Knockdown, range), and Shockwave (Knockback, range).  Follow-Up for Scrappers, Tanks, and Brutes is almost purely a 'power tax' on getting any form of Build-Up, as its damage is barely (1-3 damage) better than Swipe at a much higher END/Recharge cost.

 

Claws is still a good set, mind - primarily because by setting damage at comparable levels, then discounting the resulting END/Recharge, the devs kept visible performance in line with others.  This also points something out - percentage reductions in ENd and Recharge values are self-limiting due to the way the game is designed, so even a large END discount can have a much smaller impact than it seems it should, and Recharge redux is the same.  Damage is the opposite.  While yes, every 100% damage increase is a smaller 'piece' of your previous damage, it's still adding the base power on again - and when the base power has been 'bumped' in damage rather than reduced in END/Rech, that effect is magnified, because rather than having less base to reduce by %, it's got more base to multiply.

[Infinitum]

3 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

That is a really good anecdote @Sniktch. That is more or less an extreme version of power creep where an update made a strategy downright broken instead of just "incredibly good", but sometimes that happens unintentionally and the only healthy thing to do is dial back what ended up too powerful else the fun is compromised.

 

-------------------------------------------

 

But, as mentioned we don't have a good way to even see who or what is performing in what capacity in a "normal" environment. I can run scenarios on every primary, but to be fair I think they should all share the same secondary....

 

Shield is disingenuous for a global test as some sets just can't be used with it. So I'm going to take that out of the pool of 13 Scrapper secondaries for the moment.

 

Looking at the rest for a candidate of your "Average" secondary, I want to look into what the most common combat-related stat may be to make our pick. There are no secondaries that offer 0 offensive boosts, but the least impactful out of straight up attacks, damage auras, and recharge boosts must be End Management. 4/12 have a Quick Recovery type power, 4/12 have an End Drain, and 1/12 have a +End button. Overall 9/12 armor sets (with shield excluded) have some method of endurance management, making it a fair trait to have in a "real world" example. Of those 9, Willpower has the least extra effects that would effect combat such as damage auras, click powers, or other goodies. Luckily, WP is also one of the most popular armor picks period to further back it up as our secondary of choice:

 

 

I'll throw in Combat Jumping as that seems to be an incredibly common pick for nearly all melee players as well. With QR and Stamna 3 slotted, and all WP toggles + CJ running without End Redux (opting for 3 slotting relevant defensive stats, except CJ which gets 1 slot), WP will Recover 3.45 end/s, drain 0.9/s, for a net recovery of 2.55/s.

 

As for the tests to run through, we need something that mirrors normal content to a degree. A team environment is too chaotic to get real data from, despite having the varied enemies and large groups. There's just too many X factors. Solo at +0/x1 is far too easy.... but solo at +0/x3 seems about right. +0 gives us enemies that are either even-con or +1 level to the character, and x3 gives us groups between 5-10 enemies which is perfect for melee sets to dive into with their target caps.

 

Last night, I wanted to see if I could get a read on what a typical mission at this difficulty threw at you, so I went through 10 "Defeat the boss!" style radio missions at +0/x3 on my Claw/EA scrapper. This took me through Sewers, Labs, Office Buildings and Warehouses (luckily no caves...) which gave me varied encounters of different enemy types and group sizes, as well as group locations that were either very close or spread apart. Here is what I found:

 

• On average, there were about 10 groups of enemies per mission from start to finish (finding the group with the end boss).
• On average, timing between groups that were close enough to aggro both at once by accident and those that I needed to go to another room for, the time between groups was about 8 seconds. 
• There was approximately ~700 enemies I chewed through in these 10 missions, and I made sure to survey each spawn (EA's stealth helped here) to note what types of groups there where. On average, I saw the following:
  • About 30% of spawns were +1 lvl compared to +0, with no pattern of what types were +1
  • About 30% of spawns were groups of 5 Minions, and 2 LT's
  • About 20% of spawns were groups of 8 Minions, and 1 LT
  • About 20% of spawns were groups of 4 Minions, and 1 Boss
  • About 10% of spawns were groups of 10 minions
  • About 10% of spawns were groups of 3 Minions, and 3 LT's
  • About 10% of spawns were groups of 4 Minions, 1 LT, and 1 Boss (the last group)

 

Using these as data points, an average mission may look like this:

 

 

10 groups of enemies

8 sec of downtime in between groups

Every 3rd group is +1 level, making them 10% tougher in both damage taken and hit chance. 

The +1 groups are split between an ST focused boss spawn, a balanced spawn, and a very minion-heavy spawn.

Groups have various makeups based on my observation where some have smaller numbers but higher ranks, and vice versa. 

 

I tried to balance the encounters to have a bit of variety from group to group not to favor AoE or ST. Some groups have tons of minions that big AoEs will help against, while others have fewer, harder targets that ST attacks will likely help with.

 

That said, this is still a lot of enemies per group, so if we want to give an ST test we can add an 11th round with an Elite Boss spawn:

 

 

The final round gives a target for the more ST oriented sets to have a better data point as well, and I feel EB's are common enough in story-arc / TF gameplay to be a valid round in the test. 

 

My hope is that this could emulate a normal mission, and the goal will be to clear the groups as efficiently as possible which will test AoE and ST damage throughout the run. We have a +End power in play from WP, and in between groups the character should be able to recover 20.4 Endurance. For a benchmark on endurance management, how about we ad a caveat that the character should be able to move to the next group with over 40 endurance to use? They will need to wait to recover that much endurance (about 16 sec if they are at 0) before moving to the next group. 

 

Misses should be about 5% of the time, or 1 in 20 attacks. That would be a bit iffy to figure out... so maybe just reduce damage by 5%? A bit higher vs the +1's....

 

Using Scrappers as a base, they have 5% crit chance on minions, and 10% on LT's+. Over time this could be rounded out to 5% and 10% damage buffs respectively, canceling out the acc penalty over time on minions and providing a 5% boost on the LT's+.  Any noticeable changes to Accuracy and/or Criticals would need to be noted (else we elect to avoid crits). 

 

Thoughts?

 

 

What about running it on the S/L comic con farm outdoor, where EBs spawn?  Since s/l is the most common damage type that would give a good result there, but part of me cant help but want to see something that reflects how it would perform at the top end also with incarnate content with Energy, S/L psi all rolled into one like Incarnate content usually is.

 

What is the metric you are looking for clear time?

 

Need to figure out a way to statically test a team function also, i know the results would be variable, but an average of several runs should give you the best result, talking about factoring in metrics such as kinetics, or rad which would also tell you how much more effecient any melee would be on a team with features such as adenaline boost or recharge.

 

I think you are on to a pretty good testbed though honestly.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Infinitum

[Galaxy Brain]

Incoming damage isnt that important for this test at the moment as they will all be running the same defense. Though mitigation through attacks will be a factor.

 

I'm very hesitant on using a farm map as it doesnt reflect normal gameplay through missions 🤔 

 

 

[Steampunkette]

Just now, Galaxy Brain said:

Incoming damage isnt that important for this test at the moment as they will all be running the same defense. Though mitigation through attacks will be a factor.

 

I'm very hesitant on using a farm map as it doesnt reflect normal gameplay through missions 🤔 

 

 

We could start with a battery of tests on the Asteroid Map with minimally effective NPCs. How much damage they do is irrelevant. No ambushes or hostages or anything, just the basic map plain as can be. We'll still get runners and such, and an open area to chase them in. After all, titan weapons or broadsword if there's a box in the way you still jump over it or run around it, so it's kind of irrelevant.

 

5 tests each with each melee type, recorded for duration mapping.

 

Then we send the players in with either an Energy Blaster slotted -exclusively- for Accuracy, Endurance, and Recharge with SOs or a Peacebringer slotted the same.

 

That'll adjust for knockback style mechanics. Do another 5 for that battery, recording it as noted, and compare times.

[Galaxy Brain]

I'd really like to just emulate the data on melee sets first as the question raised is if TW overperforms compared to other melee sets.

 

If this is a solid benchmark tho it can be used for other characters in the future. 

 

[Infinitum]

5 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I'd really like to just emulate the data on melee sets first as the question raised is if TW overperforms compared to other melee sets.

 

If this is a solid benchmark tho it can be used for other characters in the future. 

 

But what Steam said is valid, kb is a real metric to figure for when determining how sets perform on a team, becuase lets face it i bet at least 80 percent of the playerbase teams.

[Galaxy Brain]

If you wanna do that, just use a storm and gust on max recharge.

 

Controllers also mitigate knockback and there are 3 ats (including sents) that have aoe immobilizes... 4 if you have somebody with web nades from mace mastery... that can negate knockback nowadays.

 

This is adding too many variables atm, I'd rather run numbers on the sets to compare to one another.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Galaxy Brain

[TheAdjustor]

1 hour ago, Steampunkette said:

We could start with a battery of tests on the Asteroid Map with minimally effective NPCs. How much damage they do is irrelevant. No ambushes or hostages or anything, just the basic map plain as can be. We'll still get runners and such, and an open area to chase them in. After all, titan weapons or broadsword if there's a box in the way you still jump over it or run around it, so it's kind of irrelevant.

 

5 tests each with each melee type, recorded for duration mapping.

 

Then we send the players in with either an Energy Blaster slotted -exclusively- for Accuracy, Endurance, and Recharge with SOs or a Peacebringer slotted the same.

 

That'll adjust for knockback style mechanics. Do another 5 for that battery, recording it as noted, and compare times.

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.

 

 

[Hopeling]

19 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Your experience may be different, i concede that, but how do you determine what is necessary vs what is right, vs what is desired?

Well, what you don't do is throw your hands up in the air and decide that game balance is unimportant or impossible.

 

There's almost never going to be a single metric you can point to and say - aha, this is ironclad proof that powerset X needs to be brought down by exactly Y%. You may not have any metrics that aren't confounded in some way. But you take whatever metrics you do have and look at the picture they make in gestalt. A powerset that overperforms in one metric may just be a fluke; a powerset that overperforms in every metric you can think of may be a real issue to be addressed.

 

Determining what's the right change to make is then another difficult problem, but not an impossible one. You come up with possible changes, see how they affect your metrics, and decide on a candidate. Generally, it's better to make small changes rather than sweeping changes. All of us in this thread seem to agree that, if TW is changed at all, it should be something conservative, with maybe further adjustments later if the initial ones aren't enough. Changing every melee set except TW would be an example of an unnecessarily broad change: if people like most melee sets just fine as-is, why mess with all of them when you could instead just change one?

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Incoming damage isnt that important for this test at the moment as they will all be running the same defense. Though mitigation through attacks will be a factor.

 

I'm very hesitant on using a farm map as it doesnt reflect normal gameplay through missions 🤔

I agree that a farm map is probably a bad idea, especially if it's the one on the asteroid map with a bunch of patrols. The whole point of that map is to achieve target saturation way beyond what you can have in normal missions. An asteroid map with ordinary spawns (but not patrols or ambushes) of not-too-dangerous enemies should suffice. We may not even need a custom enemy group; Council or Freakshow may work fine.

 

Steampunkette's idea of using an energy blaster NPC is a good idea; it allows a reasonably controlled test that still incorporates the idea of teammates disrupting Momentum cycles. This shouldn't be the ONLY condition we test under - a teammate spamming Explosive Blast without slotting for KB>KD or knowing how to use positioning is closer to a worst-case scenario than average-case - but it should be one of them.

 

We still need to agree on some conditions for tests before we can get started. We don't have to pick just one set of test conditions, but as a measure of baseline performance, what about something like:

• SOs only. Slotting can be at the player's discretion, as is the rest of the build, but when in doubt, slotting attacks with 1acc/3dam/1end/1rech is a good default.
• Run at +0/x4. You have enough targets available that AoE is worthwhile, but not so many that it completely overshadows ST damage, and some spawns will have bosses.
• Inspirations are allowed, but you have to start with an empty tray. No stocking up on 20 [Enrage]s before zoning in.
• Level 50 character, but no Incarnate powers.

Edited September 15, 2019 by Hopeling

[Steampunkette]

7 minutes ago, Hopeling said:

Well, what you don't do is throw your hands up in the air and decide that game balance is unimportant or impossible.

 

There's almost never going to be a single metric you can point to and say - aha, this is ironclad proof that powerset X needs to be brought down by exactly Y%. You may not have any metrics that aren't confounded in some way. But you take whatever metrics you do have and look at the picture they make in gestalt. A powerset that overperforms in one metric may just be a fluke; a powerset that overperforms in every metric you can think of may be a real issue to be addressed.

 

Determining what's the right change to make is then another difficult problem, but not an impossible one. You come up with possible changes, see how they affect your metrics, and decide on a candidate. Generally, it's better to make small changes rather than sweeping changes. All of us in this thread seem to agree that, if TW is changed at all, it should be something conservative, with maybe further adjustments later if the initial ones aren't enough. Changing every melee set except TW would be an example of an unnecessarily broad change: if people like most melee sets just fine as-is, why mess with all of them when you could instead just change one?

I agree that a farm map is probably a bad idea, especially if it's the one on the asteroid map with a bunch of patrols. The whole point of that map is to achieve target saturation way beyond what you can have in normal missions. An asteroid map with ordinary spawns (but not patrols or ambushes) of not-too-dangerous enemies should suffice. We may not even need a custom enemy group; Council or Freakshow may work fine.

 

Steampunkette's idea of using an energy blaster NPC is a good idea; it allows a reasonably controlled test that still incorporates the idea of teammates disrupting Momentum cycles. This shouldn't be the ONLY condition we test under - a teammate spamming Explosive Blast without slotting for KB>KD or knowing how to use positioning is closer to a worst-case scenario than average-case - but it should be one of them.

 

We still need to agree on some conditions for tests before we can get started. We don't have to pick just one set of test conditions, but as a measure of baseline performance, what about something like:

• SOs only. Slotting can be at the player's discretion, as is the rest of the build, but when in doubt, slotting attacks with 1acc/3dam/1end/1rech is a good default.
• Run at +0/x4. You have enough targets available that AoE is worthwhile, but not so many that it completely overshadows ST damage, and some spawns will have bosses.
• Inspirations are allowed, but you have to start with an empty tray. No stocking up on 20 [Enrage]s before zoning in.
• Level 50 character, but no Incarnate powers.

I agree with -almost- every point, here.

 

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, and whether some sets perform better than others in those situations. Things like Titan Weapons' long reach or Kinetic Melee and Claws's Ranged Attacks or Foot Stomp's giant area. 

 

By doing it in the baseline with just the tested character we'll get an idea of ST and AoE attacks, but the benefit of longer ranged abilities will be at best obscured. Let's find out how much impact they can actually cause.

[MunkiLord]

14 hours ago, Megajoule said:

I'm asking you to think about people other than yourself.

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?

[Infinitum]

51 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

If you wanna do that, just use a storm and gust on max recharge.

 

Controllers also mitigate knockback and there are 3 ats (including sents) that have aoe immobilizes... 4 if you have somebody with web nades from mace mastery... that can negate knockback nowadays.

 

This is adding too many variables atm, I'd rather run numbers on the sets to compare to one another.

I think we should cause KB to simulate that, not negate it.