Focused Feedback: Tank Updates for October 1st, 2019

[XaoGarrent]

7 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Do they? None of the sets seem to be balanced around damage type at all. 

 

A Lethal 4 second recharging attack does the same damage as a Cold 4 second recharging attack. 

 

 

It's been years, so I'm just going on something I remember being talked back when the game is live (around the time they removed weapon redraw time from successive attacks with sets like Katana and Broadsword). I could be off about this, and I don't know if it was strictly damage or maybe DPS. I do know for a fact that Fire sets are balanced like this, though, as it's really apparent when you use the sets. They tend to have extra AoE and do more damage through the DoTs in sacrifice of having little to no extra utility.

[Haijinx]

9 minutes ago, XaoGarrent said:

It's been years, so I'm just going on something I remember being talked back when the game is live (around the time they removed weapon redraw time from successive attacks with sets like Katana and Broadsword). I could be off about this, and I don't know if it was strictly damage or maybe DPS. I do know for a fact that Fire sets are balanced like this, though, as it's really apparent when you use the sets. They tend to have extra AoE and do more damage through the DoTs in sacrifice of having little to no extra utility.

Fire has damage as a secondary effect via DOT, yeah, rather than say KD or stun. 

 

But i don't think its tied to resistances at all. 

[XaoGarrent]

16 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Fire has damage as a secondary effect via DOT, yeah, rather than say KD or stun. 

 

But i don't think its tied to resistances at all. 

The value and performance of every damage dealing power is implicitly, factually, unavoidably tied to resistances. A more resisted set is just inherently less valuable. It's just a pure numbers game at this stage, and incredibly simple one.

 

So that set needs to make it up in another way. If your smash/lethal set happens to have some crowd control, or maybe a useful debuff or two, or higher base DPS, and it starts seeing less resistances, but fire inversely starts seeing more, there's going to be an abrupt balance shift, and not for the better.

 

This is the sort of reason why balancing a game is such a pain. I often question initiatives like completely rebalancing enemy resistances, even if in theory it should improve the game, because it's just so much difficult work for so little reward. Unless the imbalance is breaking game design wide open (Hello Warframe armor scaling, I'm looking at you), it's low reward because all most players want is for their weapons, tools, characters, etc, to not suck. And making everything at least perform at an acceptable level is much, much easier than making everything balanced.

 

The reason I say all this is that, sure, enemy resistances are all over the place in terms of balance, but aside from Psionic being too deep and smash/lethal being too prolific, how often do you find resistances negatively impacting your experience? Personally, I'd just cut back on those two and maybe do a quick pass to see if maybe a few groups couldn't use a few thematic resistances they don't already have.

[Haijinx]

I just meant that sets are not currently adjusted at all  with regard to resistance. 

 

Should they be? Ok?  Maybe.

 

I think that any sort of synergy of control effects was for thematic reasons.  Any correlation with more resisted damage types was coincidental.

 

Smashing for example gets stun and kds, Darkness makes you harder to hit, Cold slows you down, and so on.

 

A couple of smashing sets did get boosted up in damage (WM and MA) but in general I don't think resist was planned for.  

 

People may take the hodge podge of effects and dps and ascribe some intelligence behind it ..

 

But then again song writers are often amused by the supposed deep meaning people read into their lyrics.  "I was just singing about a Walrus, it didn't mean anything."

[Demon Shell]

I'd like to hope resistances are being looked at to make them more diverse, and not strictly easier or harder. Although, end game enemies could maybe have any 0% or lower resistances brought up to 10-20%.

 

I've always felt the greater issue is the damage-types enemies use against us. Not just that there's too much of a focus on Smashing/Lethal/Energy, but the lack of Fire/Cold/Negative, and especially Toxic.

[Vanden]

On 10/16/2019 at 8:58 AM, Captain Powerhouse said:

Some Melee Powersets will be looked at later after this is out of the way. 

The rage crash avoidance will actually be rolled back on next patch, the set will be looked at in more detail later, but not until another project is done: go through every single entity in the game and re-balance enemy damage resistances. 

I really think Super Strength needs a looking-at with regards to the new inherent at the very least.

 

But does this other project of yours mean we'll finally be taking away Shock Treatment's Power Surge and Paragon Protectors' MoG? Pretty please?😁

Edited October 18, 2019 by Vanden

[Captain Powerhouse]

Nope. Only looking at passive resistances. Toggles and clicks are being left alone, for the time being, as players can attempt to prevent their activations or somehow drop toggles.

Edited October 18, 2019 by Captain Powerhouse

[Vanden]

You're in Crey's pocket, aren't you

[XaoGarrent]

7 hours ago, Haijinx said:

People may take the hodge podge of effects and dps and ascribe some intelligence behind it ..

You are aware that game designers design games, correct? That isn't to say they always get it right, but I'd at least give the live developers the benefit of the doubt that they weren't just sniffing glue and eating crayons when designing these powers. Yes, I think there was some intelligence behind all that. Sorry, but there's simply too much against the idea that thought didn't go into, at the very least, interset balance and design, or the environment in a game that is primarily player versus environment in nature.

 

Then again, the Assault Rifle set exists, so maybe there were a few crayola dinners, at least from time to time.

Edited October 18, 2019 by XaoGarrent

[Haijinx]

2 minutes ago, XaoGarrent said:

You are aware that game designers design games, correct? That isn't to say they always get it right, but I'd at least give the live developers the benefit of the doubt that they weren't just sniffing glue and eating crayons when designing these powers. Yes, I think there was some intelligence behind all that. Sorry, but there's simply too much against the idea that thought didn't go into, at the very least, interset balance and design, or the environment in a game that is primarily player versus environment in nature.

The game was waaaaaay different back then.

 

I only meant the idea there was intelligence behind the idea that secondary effects vs overall set damage vs resistance to damage type. 

 

There wasn't.  They didn't even think animation times would matter.   DPA wasn't a thing.  Back Alley Brawler admitted as much sometime after IOs made it painfully obvious sets with fast animating attacks chained together were the biggest consideration.  

 

Originally an attack did a very specific amount of damage based on its recharge value.   

An 8s recharge attack that took 2 seconds to animate of Energy damage did exact same as a 8s recharge attack that took 1 second to animate with lethal damage that did the same amount as a 8s recharge attack that took 3 seconds to animate of Cold damage.  There's charts of this somewhere.  

 

Then the secondary effect was added on.  Every set had its gimmicks.  The sets that got extra damage were the ones where DOTs were the gimmick.  

 

If they had balanced considering type from the get go ../ Capt PH wouldn't likely need to look at base resistances ... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Captain Powerhouse]

Damage resistances were never taken into account when designing power sets. Well, almost never. There were two exceptions:

 

1) For years they avoided giving players more psi powers in fear of PvP balance (no longer an issue after they patched every psi hole in PvP only)

 

2) For years they opted to ignore Dual Pistol issues “because it could switch into toxic mode, a rarely resisted type” (something that was wrong, it’s one of the most heavily resisted types by some of the most recurring end-game enemies.)

 

For the most part, the only metric used by devs to design offensive powers was powers dpa, and even then the tools were not were too powerful, reason why some sets are either way too good or way too weak.

 

[Haijinx]

I remember Back Alley Brawler made a concerted effort to do some animation improvements sometime after IOs made high DPS builds possible.  That was when Martial Arts got some improved animation times and some improved damage.  I used to run mostly Martial Arts back then hence my nickname.   

 

And of course the newer sets got some actual animation times planned in.  So at least for those the slow attacks were also the big hitters by design rather than just by what looked powerful. 

 

Also they did that animation normalization for blaster T1 and T2s which helped some sets and hurt others.  

[Captain Powerhouse]

I don’t recall there being any animation time changes for martial arts after the storm kick change very early on. They did change recharge times and damage for better dps, and added some new mechanic to Eagle Claw that boosts crit rate, but that was all Castle’s area.

 

The blaster T1/2 normalization was for different reasons relating with making all the “usable while mezzed” powers “equal” for blasters.

[Trickshooter]

4 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

I don’t recall there being any animation time changes for martial arts after the storm kick change very early on. They did change recharge times and damage for better dps, and added some new mechanic to Eagle Claw that boosts crit rate, but that was all Castle’s area.

 

The blaster T1/2 normalization was for different reasons relating with making all the “usable while mezzed” powers “equal” for blasters.

I believe they're referencing these that came between Issues 12 and 13: Link!

 

Changed animations for Martial Arts attacks to help improve performance. New animation times are as follows:
Thunder Kick 0.83
Storm Kick 0.83
Cobra Strike 1.67
Crane Kick 1.67
Crippling Axe Kick 1.60
Dragons Tail 1.50
Eagles Claw 2.53

[Captain Powerhouse]

I must have missed those when they came through, thought that stuff happened WAY earlier (same time as the storm kick chun-li animation removal,) but then again, I didnt really play MA until the tanker version (I never got over the removal of that awesomely slow-but-cool storm kick... might also be why my timeline for the set stops there.)

 

[Myrmidon]

5 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

5 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

I must have missed those when they came through, thought that stuff happened WAY earlier (same time as the storm kick chun-li animation removal,) but then again, I didnt really play MA until the tanker version (I never got over the removal of that awesomely slow-but-cool storm kick... might also be why my timeline for the set stops there.)

 

 If this is changing from a Tanker changes thread to a Melee Sets thread, I would like to ask for Dragon’s Tail to be added to Stalker Martial Arts. It could use at least one to try and keep up with the rest of the sets.

Edited October 18, 2019 by Myrmidon

[Captain Powerhouse]

If I have time later i'll split off this thread, but it seems that until the next patch the discussion on the tanker changes has pretty much reached it's end.

 

That said: as much as I would like to address Stalker issues for EM and MA, due to the removal of their only AoE powers, it's highly unlikely that these sets will ever get their AoEs inserted back in. It would require some drastic game changes or breaking the cottage rule.

[Auroxis]

54 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

If I have time later i'll split off this thread, but it seems that until the next patch the discussion on the tanker changes has pretty much reached it's end.

 

That said: as much as I would like to address Stalker issues for EM and MA, due to the removal of their only AoE powers, it's highly unlikely that these sets will ever get their AoEs inserted back in. It would require some drastic game changes or breaking the cottage rule.

What about re-working Placate into an AoE finisher? Make it an AoE mag 4 Placate, but If you have 3 stacks of Asssassin's Focus it also deals high levels of damage. Would certainly help struggling sets with no AoE on Stalker, while not being a mandatory pick for sets with an abundance of AoE.

 

Placate is unique in that it has no IO sets attached, so there wouldn't be an issue with the cottage rule or with breaking existing builds.

[Myrmidon]

1 hour ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

That said: as much as I would like to address Stalker issues for EM and MA, due to the removal of their only AoE powers, it's highly unlikely that these sets will ever get their AoEs inserted back in. It would require some drastic game changes or breaking the cottage rule.

Funny enough, the only two Stalker sets that I’ve ever played. Clearly, it’s time to look into an AoE set or two.

[Captain Powerhouse]

10 minutes ago, Auroxis said:

What about re-working Placate into an AoE finisher? Make it an AoE mag 4 Placate, but If you have 3 stacks of Asssassin's Focus it also deals high levels of damage. Would certainly help struggling sets with no AoE on Stalker, while not being a mandatory pick for sets with an abundance of AoE.

 

Placate is unique in that it has no IO sets attached, so there wouldn't be an issue with the cottage rule or with breaking existing builds.

 

There is no good one-size-fits-all fixes for stalkers. Doing this to placate would just give more AoE to every stalker, and some of the later sets didn't lose any AoE on their stalker transition. This could make some Stalker AoE too good even when compared to other ATs, and it would still keep MA and EM relatively under-performing. Any fix to those two sets needs to be tailor made for them and not meddle with Assassination, Placate or Build Up, powers that are shared among all Stalker Melee sets.

 

[Auroxis]

30 minutes ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

There is no good one-size-fits-all fixes for stalkers. Doing this to placate would just give more AoE to every stalker, and some of the later sets didn't lose any AoE on their stalker transition. This could make some Stalker AoE too good even when compared to other ATs, and it would still keep MA and EM relatively under-performing. Any fix to those two sets needs to be tailor made for them and not meddle with Assassination, Placate or Build Up, powers that are shared among all Stalker Melee sets.

 

As someone who played a lot of Elec Melee Stalker both back when the servers were live and now on the Elec/SD version, that would fully depend on the damage numbers as you have a plethora of AoE's to use already. Keep in mind Placate is a 60s recharge power, and spending 3x Assassin's Focus on it lowers your Assassin's Strike's potential damage (which AoE sets like Elec Melee rely upon).

 

You're basically giving Stalkers an option to choose between the existing single target DPS from AS or more AoE, it's not just a straight buff.

 

And the problem isn't only with MA and EM, it's also with DB, Kat, BS, Claws, Fire, and DM.

Edited October 18, 2019 by Auroxis

[Haijinx]

2 hours ago, Myrmidon said:

Funny enough, the only two Stalker sets that I’ve ever played. Clearly, it’s time to look into an AoE set or two.

My 50 stalker is MA, and missing DT hurts.   They have more ST attacks then they need.   CAK or crane kick could become DT.  

 

My new stalker is street justice.  Which has both the cone and TAOE.  

 

 

[Haijinx]

5 hours ago, Trickshooter said:

I believe they're referencing these that came between Issues 12 and 13: Link!

 

Changed animations for Martial Arts attacks to help improve performance. New animation times are as follows:
Thunder Kick 0.83
Storm Kick 0.83
Cobra Strike 1.67
Crane Kick 1.67
Crippling Axe Kick 1.60
Dragons Tail 1.50
Eagles Claw 2.53

Yeah Eagles claw was the most noticable, it used to have an extra flippie do at the end lol.

 

Dragons tail actually got slowed down a touch later IIRC.  Still very fast for a melee PBAOE though.

[Vanden]

4 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

That said: as much as I would like to address Stalker issues for EM and MA, due to the removal of their only AoE powers, it's highly unlikely that these sets will ever get their AoEs inserted back in. It would require some drastic game changes or breaking the cottage rule.

Well, for what it's worth, according to the power percentages that Cipher posted, Stun is only taken by about 1/5th of Energy Melee characters. It's an obvious weak spot in the set, ripe for being the focus of a buff, and it seems like the vast majority of players wouldn't miss it if it were replaced by an AoE attack of some sort. The set could definitely use more AoE, on every AT, not just Stalkers. Food for thought.

[Caulderone]

6 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

There is no good one-size-fits-all fixes for stalkers. Doing this to placate would just give more AoE to every stalker, and some of the later sets didn't lose any AoE on their stalker transition. This could make some Stalker AoE too good even when compared to other ATs, and it would still keep MA and EM relatively under-performing. Any fix to those two sets needs to be tailor made for them and not meddle with Assassination, Placate or Build Up, powers that are shared among all Stalker Melee sets.

 

Maybe some kind of splash damage a la Beam Rifle or Rad Melee for these sets lacking AoE?

 

 

Edited October 18, 2019 by Caulderone