If you could redesign the inherent powers...

[Gulbasaur]

What would they be? What's your imaginary "if I were a dev, I would have done this differently..." balance patch?

 

I have a real problem with the Defender one, but I used to main a kinetics defender so I was running round at damage cap with a "more endurance please" button. It was genuinely pointless. I would add a recharge boost to it - the problem is rarely a lack of damage or endurance, it's that the big-hitters are on cooldown. It's just not on the same league as the other inherents, or at least it's not consistently useful across the powersets.  

 

Dominators and Controllers have it the wrong way round, in my opinion: controllers, who have a hard and soft control focus, should have had the one that made them better at control and dominators, who have a DPS focus, should have had the DPS one with a lower base modifier to compensate.

 

Stalkers don't need the additional 3% buff per teammate - they already crank out a huge amount of damage. At the moment, they have a 31% base to-crit on a full team as well as guaranteed crits from assassin's strike and hide. The fact that the ATOs synergise so well with their mechanics is a mixed blessing - yes, reliably being able to hit for 1k damage every 15 seconds or so is fun, but it slightly trivialises a lot of combat. Stalkers started out poor, but they were buffed so far beyond scrappers that I really wonder what they were thinking - they aren't any less difficult to keep alive than scrappers (and are easier in groups as they generate less threat) but can get their crit chance up from 31% to 100% by using a critical hit with the ATO and there is still a 31% chance the next hit will crit as well.

 

I think scrappers are basically fine - it's a mechanic that just happens in play with no management, which suits the "I just want to run in and deal some damage" playstyle of scrappers. 

 

Brutes shouldn't have had the pokevoke - it has completely trivialised tankers (and dwarf-form kheldians) more than anything else. The fact that they don't have to work for melee-range aggro is just silly; the second they get an AoE tank, it renders Gauntlet useless. High threat rating, taunt auras and powers - fine - but a taunt-on-hit on top of that is too easy. Masterminds were originally envisioned as the CoV tanks with an evil mastermind sending her minions into the slaughter - so why did they make one that so clearly goes against that? 

 

Tankers are being looked at, but personally I'd have boosted their crowd control abilities as controlling the flow of a crowd is that they do best, but the range increase looks like it does the same thing from a different direction. 

 

The kheldian ones are interesting - there's a period from about level 20 to about level 40 when a kheldian, on a full team, depending on composition, can out-blast a blaster and out-tank a brute because they get a lot of passive damage and resistance bonuses on top of anything they get from powers. However, the difference between solo and team play is night and day so I feel like the payoff is justified. 

The VEATs have a really unexciting boost to regen and recovery, but it fits their theme and makes life slightly easier. I like the design of the VEATs generally - there is something elegant in the fact that they have fairly standard defence secondaries but share them with their teammates. It's a shame that widows are literally build from scraps with a total mishmash of powers... but they sure are fun. 

 

Corruptors; Scourge is decent - it's a significant DPS boost, with conditions.

 

Masterminds - eh, a bit underwhelming, but fine. 

 

Blasters' stacking damage bonus is nice and the mez-proofing solves a major problem they have. I kind of liked the old 'seat of your pants' version, but I see why they changed it. 

 

For reference, I played a stalker and brute up to incarnates, and I think they're slightly too good at what they do for balance purposes. The EATs have it about right. My defender on live never, ever, ever noticed the inherent, even once - I remember the patch that introduced it and noticing zero difference before and after. Controllers are the only other one I'm really super familiar with and while the extra DPS was nice, being second tier at control and support puts them in a tenuous position. 

Edited October 30, 2019 by Gulbasaur

[Schizophobia]

gauntlet is really the only tragic one because tankers had it from the beginning. scrappers got theirs (along with a damage boost iirc) to make them less useless, and then everyone got one to try to shore them up/make them interesting and just 'cuz. except tankers. they just named the taunt on powers gauntlet and said "You were special all along, lol" man that's a Sad.

 

i guess they were originally going to get fury? and some people were (understandably?) really salty about it, i remember that.

 

i know fuck all about either set of epic AT's.

 

the villain AT ones are all pretty good, i think just cause they were kind of built around them. didn't fury do +300% at one point and then they nerfed it? it was a lot of fun when the game first came out. but then going rogue kinda lul'd all over that one.

 

anyway, yeah. gauntlet. that one was unfortunate. only one i'd say i ever had a 'problem' with or would want to 'change.' couldn't say to what though.

[Outrider_01]

Defiance 1.0 : Reaper Salad

 

It was nick named, had to be very friendly with the Grim Reaper to get use out of it.

 

Living on the edge.  Could taste the difference in pavement, flooring,  and dirt every time you face planted from that adrenaline high.  Good times, good time.

[DougGraves]

I would make scrappers off tanks

 

Scrappers would get a non-self stacking buff to Res and Def when they attack based on the type of enemy they are attacking.  GM's big buff down to minions little buff.  So scrappers should look for the toughest thing to attack.

 

[MetaVileTerror]

I'd decouple all Inherents from Archetypes, which would be a LOT of work . . . looking at you Controllers and Scrappers . . . 
But then I'd allow for each Archetype to have a choice between one of three Inherents, with a design philosophy of:  Solo, Team, Wild Card.  These Inherents would be Respec'able, and I'd toss in another Build to facilitate players having greater ease in choosing an appropriate Inherent for their present play experience.  None of these Inherents would be Slottable, though, so there wouldn't be any concerns surrounding that potential can of worms.

 

I actually have a list of Inherent ideas along these lines on my other computer when I was working on a tabletop version of City of Heroes.  I should go dust them off and propose them to the community.

[Gulbasaur]

3 hours ago, MetaVileTerror said:

But then I'd allow for each Archetype to have a choice between one of three Inherents, with a design philosophy of:  Solo, Team, Wild Card.

That would be so good. The idea of alternate inherents has passed through my head as well. 

[Derek Icelord]

I've no idea if a choice of inherent would be possible with this 15 year old game engine, but damn if it doesn't sound like an amazing idea.

[MetaVileTerror]

It's possible, but it would be a slog to implement, since many Inherents are actually baked in to the individual Powers.  Hence the "decouple" thing I mentioned.  Granted, this would also potentially offer some nice future-proofing for the individual Powers, and they might even be able to be truly shared between Archetypes, rather than each Archetype having an entirely individual version of the Power which needs to be tweaked during balance passes.

[Schizophobia]

20 hours ago, MetaVileTerror said:

But then I'd allow for each Archetype to have a choice between one of three Inherents

i like the idea but i guess i question what the value of having archetypes would be at that point? why not just choose an inherent and then powers? which at best is kind of the function AT's already serve and at worst is sort of a totally different game altogether.

 

i mean you could keep both i guess, but man. imagine being the gal/guy who has to figure out how to make sure every possible combination of inherent, at, power set, and power set combo a relevant and interesting choice. i'd feel bad for them lmao

 

cause if you couldn't you'd end up with like: this is fire blaster bob. he punches fire!! this is fire blaster sally. she punches fire, uh... HARDER!! rrrrr!

 

wow and eq2 have this problem imo, if you know what i mean?

 

its a good idea, but i think you'd probably just want a whole new game at that point. and way fewer AT's (if you were going to keep them). just to not go insane i mean.

[Twisted Toon]

2 hours ago, MetaVileTerror said:

It's possible, but it would be a slog to implement, since many Inherents are actually baked in to the individual Powers.  Hence the "decouple" thing I mentioned.  Granted, this would also potentially offer some nice future-proofing for the individual Powers, and they might even be able to be truly shared between Archetypes, rather than each Archetype having an entirely individual version of the Power which needs to be tweaked during balance passes.

If I were to tweak the inherants, I'd end up revamping the entirety of character creation.

 

Basically, you'd start with baseline stats. That would be modified by what AT you chose (ATs are modifiers to the character). Tanks get more HPs and inherant DR, Defenders would get inherant Def, etc. Then, I'd allow any "AT" to use any offensive power-set, and any defense/support set. Caveat being, you'd have to choose one offensive set. I'd categorize control sets as offensive. That would make it easier to balance the power-sets. Also, I think it would make balancing the various ATs slightly easier as well. And it reduces the number of redundant power-sets, since there won't be a Scrapper Dark Melee and a Tank Dark Melee.

[MetaVileTerror]

Perhaps the only Archetype which is at risk of losing its unique identity would be the Scrapper/Brute.  While Hit Point and Resistance Caps are still different, and Taunt and Challenge are different (which I'd lean in to), they're the only Archetypes which share roughly the same Primary and Secondary.   Every other Archetype is distinct from the others; yes even Defenders and Corruptors.

[Erydanus]

If I could, I actually wouldn't.  I don't think they're badly in need of adjustment and several of the inherents have already been carefully massaged based on years of live play.  They're being used both for flavor and to shore up design flaws in some of the ATs. Part of the variability in the impact of inherents is caused by some ATs needing less help. I also think it's important to set aside personal anecdotal experience for this kind of discussion. For instance the TC as a kinetic defender didn't find endurance reduction or a damage boost useful; but you should recognize you're the anomaly. Most well-built defenders won't have a high need for endurance discount but in the event the team is overwhelmed or perhaps in a situation where Malta or Carnies mass end drain the team, or something just goes really bad and high cost powers are being spammed, it might turn the tide; I have seen that, more than once. The damage buff when solo was a secondary component specifically added later so that defenders who weren't teamed would get some benefit. It's not huge it's literally just a little something and yes it's more useful to people who can't raise themselves to the damage cap.

 

The controller inherent - the chance to critically hit for +1 mag AND containment - provides a nice bit of extra control as well as supplemental damage that is more useful on smaller teams or soloing. I think it's a good example of an inherent that both reinforces the core function of the AT and provides some help to the player mostly when solo/small team but is good overall. In comparison the dominator mechanic is what it is (and domination has been adjusted multiple times) because the AT was inherently quite flawed at launch. Literally they had to pile more and more power on to Domination to fix the entire AT and that's why dominators by default try for perma dom, they actually kinda suck without it. Swapping those inherents? Candidly one of the worst suggestions I've ever seen. I'm not here to tone police anyone but it really shows a lack of core understanding about how those ATs work and are balanced.

 

Stalkers all I see is a call to nerf. Why? So what the crit chance seems high, it's not actually causing a problem. Stalkers used to have problems even getting on teams because all they had was an AS from hide and then they had to run away and hide again to get much damage. They needed buffs to make them team friendly and more get them in the ballpark of being competitive with scrappers and brutes. If you look at the Flavor of the Month thread, about 5000 people got scrappers to 50 and under 2400 people got stalkers to 50.  Clearly whatever amount of crit stalkers have, they're not dominating the competition; they seem viable to people and nobody is complaining about them or scrappers as an AT.

 

Basically of all the ATs the only ones that still seem shaky to me are the Kheldians specifically because they're team-dependent still and grant no benefit when soloed. And that was by design, I believe. Originally you had to get a character to 50 to roll a Kheldian so it was assumed you'd be in a super group and have friends to play with and the ATs were specifically envisioned as being flexible ATs so when your usual group got together if the tank was out sick with the flu you could tank that week, etc.  Just as the TC did say the extreme power you get when teamed, on these ATs intended to team, does seem to make up for it. Honestly the biggest problems with the ATs when soloing were 1) the massive damage from Void Hunters and 2)  high incidence of them spawning, and 3) their shaky attack chains when shape shifted. And those 3 things are all addressed now (3 only here on Homecoming).

 

So in conclusion my sincere feeling is the devs left the inherents in a pretty good position. 

 

 

[Gulbasaur]

16 minutes ago, Erydanus said:

Candidly one of the worst suggestions I've ever seen. I'm not here to tone police anyone but it really shows a lack of core understanding about how those ATs work and are balanced.

That's fair - I didn't realise that controllers could crit for a +1 Mag... I feel they sort of lost their sparkle after while as it is now, much like tankers have to brutes. They're never the best at anything.

 

19 minutes ago, Erydanus said:

If you look at the Flavor of the Month thread, about 5000 people got scrappers to 50 and under 2400 people got stalkers to 50. 

I'd argue that's more because people perceive them as weaker because of their history more than anything else, and not realising the ATOs are transcendently amazing.

[Erydanus]

Right right, I'm definitely not saying no AT needs any adjustments. Just that I don't think major adjustments to the inherents would be the best path. 

 

I think sometimes the "meta" is as much about player knowledge as anything. I have tried to explain the stalker ATOs to a few people only to be hard rebuffed on it, because "Inventions are for level 50." When I try to explain to them that the ATOs are inherently level scaling and not something just for end game, and that they could have this amazing bonus chance to hide as low as level 10 if they run a few story arcs and buy it with merits, they've already peaced out of the conversation. It's literally bring water to a horse, and they won't drink. 

[Darkir]

I would do one of two things for scourge on corruptors.

 

1. Make scourge chance start at 75% hp scaling to 100% chance at 10% hp. Currently it is this, but it starts at 50%, and I often don't see any benefit until less than 20% at which point I completely overkill mobs.

 

2. Leave percentages the same, but add a very small scourge overkill AOE based on the amount of overkill damage. I'm imagining radiation melee contamination size aoe, so quite small. This would make scourge more useful though, now it so often only comes into play when I don't need it that it's annoying. 

 

Scourge is really only useful on AVs, GMs, and to a much much lesser extent EBs. Everything else just ends up with your scourge being overkill and often unnecessary. You would have killed the mob with or without scourge.

 

Edit: I want to be clear though, other ATs need love before corruptors. It's just that the inherent on them is often wasted.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Darkir

[MetaVileTerror]

I like your AoE Finale on Minions idea, Darkir.  That could totally be one of the new Inherents for Corruptors if I ever managed to get my previously-mentioned pipe-dream together.

[Gulbasaur]

17 hours ago, Erydanus said:

I think sometimes the "meta" is as much about player knowledge as anything. I have tried to explain the stalker ATOs to a few people only to be hard rebuffed on it, because "Inventions are for level 50." When I try to explain to them that the ATOs are inherently level scaling and not something just for end game, and that they could have this amazing bonus chance to hide as low as level 10 if they run a few story arcs and buy it with merits, they've already peaced out of the conversation. It's literally bring water to a horse, and they won't drink. 

Stalker ATOs are, admittedly, an anomaly as they are mechanic changes rather than little buffs now and again... but I can't start a stalker without buying the two ATOs; they're that good. I sorta think the ATOs need a second look generally as their vary between game-breakers (stalkers) and almost pointless (periodic tiny heal on a kheldian).

[Erydanus]

18 hours ago, Darkir said:

Scourge is really only useful on AVs, GMs, and to a much much lesser extent EBs. Everything else just ends up with your scourge being overkill and often unnecessary. You would have killed the mob with or without scourge.

 

Edit: I want to be clear though, other ATs need love before corruptors. It's just that the inherent on them is often wasted.

I think that was intentional. I think the original devs looked at the corruptor and figured they were just about perfect and since it's supposed to be a damage class they gave it something with a little bit of "evil flair." It's a smidgen of help on the very toughest foes and a tiny bit of extra speed on other things. 

 

Like I said before, inherents were used for certain balance corrections so the better functioning the AT usually the less the inherent does; they also add some flavor of course. 

 

Did you guys realize the Kheldian inherent grants them mez protection if they team with a controller or dominator? That's why the human forms have no mez protection. The devs were sure that PB & WS would only be playing with their friends so that's where the mez protection is. The ability to toggle on Dwarf form, which has mez protection as well, was added later when somehow it just didn't work that well. (Don't get me wrong I love the work the original devs did but sometimes they got it SO WRONG.)

[Flashtoo]

Walk. Let us put enhancements in it. Run and jump sets, specifically.

 

Who cares about gameplay, build quality, or balance - I just want to be able to stick a stealth proc in it, so ghostly or otherwise transparent characters can stay that way during low-key RP 🙂

[MetaVileTerror]

Alternative suggestion:  Add more Walk Toggles, including "Ghostly Walk?"

$deity knows that I want the "male" Walk animation on my "female" characters.

[Flashtoo]

This too would be acceptable! Animation-wise, moving the male walk posture to the female (or huge) model would be not an easy task, I'm afraid, but giving us a Walk that uses the same animations we already have but an added transparency effect would be far easier...

[MrSnottyPants]

The Defender's vigilance started as a team-base endurance discount and later gained a damage boost for small teams and solo.  I don't think it's out of the question to do the same for Kheldians.

 

Also don't think that's their biggest issue - I'd rather see suppressed toggles when switching forms and/or human mez protection (at least switch human from resists to defenses).  Probably tone down the void hunters too.  Soldiers and Widows are made from lots of recycled bits, but their play is so much smoother.  And their inherent helps no matter the team size.

[Gulbasaur]

23 hours ago, MrSnottyPants said:

Probably tone down the void hunters too

Hard disagree.

 

I ran a peacebringer on the early days of live when they did unresistable damage... And I sort of miss that. Kheldians end up with such high levels of damage resistance that a bit of extra negative energy damage is something you can shrug off after a few levels. Those nictus crystals, man... they were a real challenge.

 

They used to be a death sentence, now they're something you notice because of the weapon effect when they're lying on the floor... It made playing with a Kheldian feel different, now they're just seen as a roleplay class.

[Andrewvm]

I'd revisit the controller inherent. 

 

Right now it's a win-more power, have a minion held:do double damage. While when against anything that resists control (I'm looking at you AV's) you do piddly damage. 

 

I'd reverse it:

 

If the mob is not controlled it gets triple damage, if only immobed it gets double damage and if it is unable to attack (held) it gets single damage. 

 

That way a controller - does- have something to do against an AV. 

 

 

[MetaVileTerror]

Except that kind of Inherent would incentivise Controllers to let their Controls lapse on their targets, since that way they would end up getting to deal more damage.

This isn't the thread for it, but I've been toying with a new mechanic that I am going to propose once it's a little more fully fleshed out, but the short of it:  A change so that DPS is not the only meta; where Control can defeat enemies with enough application.  As it stands, though; permadom Dominators have Controllers beat in that department, and this is meant to give Controllers more oomph . . . so I think Controllers should get slightly higher innate Magnitude on their Controls AND that Critical chance for extra Magnitude should scale up as you gain levels.