The time has come to fix AoE Holds/Mezzes

[Galaxy Brain]

Just now, Haijinx said:

The problem with nerfing IOs is they serve a lot of the customization function of newer rpgs.  

Double post, but this is a valid point.... until its not. A ton of IOs have a *lot* more weight than others (LoTG, Defense, Rech in general, etc) which end up narrowing down that variety imo. I saw it suggested that IOs be diversified more to where you could build for Def but sacrifice Rech / Offense, and vice versa so that you actually have more variety. That being you have "3 paths" (Offense, Defense, Rech) and can either go HAM in one path, or dip halfway into a few or anything in between, but cant have all of it.

[golstat2003]

1 minute ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I think a couple of things could be balanced around here. Purples are more or less static in that they are super rare and available only at max level, on top of having only 1 purple per type. Unlike other IOs, they are sort of in their own bubble.

 

The ATO's are similar in that they are also sort of in their own "bubble" where they only affect certain ATs and the procs in them are all sort of universally good to shoot for. 

 

Its everything else that is a mess when it comes to bonuses and certain procs / unique effects that are questionable.

I didn't even think of procs! That's another balance nightmare! 

 

Also I suspect that purples slotting isn't as rare as most folks suspect. (I know that every single one of my 50s has at least 3 purples sets-- I have more than 10 50s).

 

Especially since they no longer cost 100 mill per IO like on live, coupled with how easy it is to get merits here than on live, coupled with enhancement converters. 😛

But you're right the only way we could know for sure is by the dev team datamining.

[Galaxy Brain]

Procs iirc are already on Cap's watchlist, but most of them are OK as is. Like, if you proc-monster out a power you trade in actual enhancement value and set bonuses for Procs so that is a balance. Technically, AoE holds are perf for procs if you solve the Acc issues since the Rech more or less guarentees they go off 😛

 

Purples at least are more contained in that they are all unique so you cant like, stack up 5 Armageddon bonuses. Hell, that might be the most direct way to fix this: lower the IO stacking from 5 to 4 / 3.

[Parabola]

I'm wondering whether it wouldn't just be easier to buff the enemies than try to rebalance the players. The idea that I'm kicking around would be to introduce a sliding scale buff that enhanced things like to hit, damage, resistance and defence (whatever was deemed appropriate) but have it scale to both level and team size. Have it kick in at whatever level is established to be the 'most players have some IO's threshold' (I'd say 32 give or take) and scale from there up to 50+. But also have it scale to team size (actual membership of team rather than the settings) so that when solo there is no buff regardless of level but when there are more of you the buff increases. And as an incentive also buff enemy xp/inf/drops alongside this.

 

This might solve a few problems. People like high level IO builds and crushing the game solo at +something×8; as the buff is ignored when solo nothing would change here. Before IO's people are rarely pushing the difficulty all the way up anyway and at those lower levels the buff wouldn't apply there either. But in the high level game this would both incentivise team play and make it harder so relieving some of the faceroll we currently have. Effectively no-one would be nerfed by this but space would still be opened up in the high level team environment.

 

Like I say, just a thought I'm kicking around. I'm sure there are 101 reasons it wouldn't work!

[golstat2003]

17 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Procs iirc are already on Cap's watchlist, but most of them are OK as is. Like, if you proc-monster out a power you trade in actual enhancement value and set bonuses for Procs so that is a balance. Technically, AoE holds are perf for procs if you solve the Acc issues since the Rech more or less guarentees they go off 😛

 

Purples at least are more contained in that they are all unique so you cant like, stack up 5 Armageddon bonuses. Hell, that might be the most direct way to fix this: lower the IO stacking from 5 to 4 / 3.

Which would still be a testing nightmare. As much as I'd like more balance, I would prefer if they spent that (extremely limited for a volunteer team) time anywhere else. LOL

 

This isn't balancing IOs + doing everything else they want to. This is you can do this but then you don't get to do that.

 

Personally, as much as IOs have been a problem, I would prefer they focus on other things (like FINALLY getting the tanker changes out, getting the Pet/Henchmen changes out, more content, new ATs, etc etc.)

 

EDIT: Note that if this was a paid team that worked fully on this game 24/7, my responses would be different.

Edited January 2, 2020 by golstat2003

[Galaxy Brain]

9 minutes ago, parabola said:

People like high level IO builds and crushing the game solo at +something×8; as the buff is ignored when solo nothing would change here.

This is another great point! In a team setting, facerolling is super common so targeting teams specifically would be a good start.

[Redlynne]

Here's an idea that will make EVERYONE angry ... but in relatively equal measure.

 

I would argue that global recharge bonuses from sets (only!) are ... overtuned.

Contemplate what would happen if global recharge bonuses from sets ... ALL SET BONUSES ... were cut in half.

 

So instead of +100% recharge from set bonuses, you'd be looking at more like a +50% recharge from set bonuses instead.

 

Such a change would "shift the center of gravity" involved in building for recharge from set bonuses towards Hasten, Alpha Slotting, Luck of the Gambler recharge IOs (which aren't set bonuses in and of themselves) and Force Feedback procs ... which would remain unchanged in this scenario.

 

Would that change a LOT of the builds out there?  No question.

Would it bring IO Sets performance profiles closer to what you can get out of SO slotting?  Unqualified yes.  IOs would still be "better" but not "as better" as they currently are.

 

Just something to think about, since it would be a LOT easier to nerf every global set bonus in this way (there's a limited number of them and it's a single parameter in a data table to edit) rather than trying to do a Clean Sheet Of Paper™ overhaul of ALL set bonuses for every single set so as to shift things around for how many slots do what.

[siolfir]

1 hour ago, Redlynne said:

Here's an idea that will make EVERYONE angry ... but in relatively equal measure.

 

I would argue that global recharge bonuses from sets (only!) are ... overtuned.

Contemplate what would happen if global recharge bonuses from sets ... ALL SET BONUSES ... were cut in half.

 

So instead of +100% recharge from set bonuses, you'd be looking at more like a +50% recharge from set bonuses instead.

 

Such a change would "shift the center of gravity" involved in building for recharge from set bonuses towards Hasten, Alpha Slotting, Luck of the Gambler recharge IOs (which aren't set bonuses in and of themselves) and Force Feedback procs ... which would remain unchanged in this scenario.

 

Would that change a LOT of the builds out there?  No question.

Would it bring IO Sets performance profiles closer to what you can get out of SO slotting?  Unqualified yes.  IOs would still be "better" but not "as better" as they currently are.

 

Just something to think about, since it would be a LOT easier to nerf every global set bonus in this way (there's a limited number of them and it's a single parameter in a data table to edit) rather than trying to do a Clean Sheet Of Paper™ overhaul of ALL set bonuses for every single set so as to shift things around for how many slots do what.

You'd be better off cutting the defense and resistance set bonus values in half instead of recharge if the goal is to knock the peak down. It doesn't matter how fast your powers are recharging if you faceplant during the animation.

[RabbitUp]

20 hours ago, Leogunner said:

How about the hilarity at the hypocrisy of how we got to City of Nukes is through consistent power creep veeeerrry similar to what's on display here?

 

Btw, I've been against a lot of changes over the years to include inherent Fitness and removing the unique factor of the lethal crashless nukes by making all nukes crashless.  I also don't like what incarnates have done to the late-game and think the IO bonuses on def and rech need more duplicate values to limit non-def armor types from capping def.  A lot of those boats have sailed but I'm not a quitter.

Not a quitter, just a hypocrite.

 

When all other changes have gone through and the other ATs get to play with they shiny new toys, you can't just stand here and shake your cane and speak about power creep. This is the typical contrarian attitude you see at every suggestion ever made in the history of everything, while at the same time, conveniently ignoring what the actual state of the game is. Stunning every spawn good, nuking every spawn also good, holding every other spawn bad, City of Statues, gloom and doom.

 

As for your other comment, you can't seriously compare what's happening here to a power like Confront. Scrappers are not meant to be the tank, having a taunt power is inherently niche. Controllers' job IS to control, so them skipping what's by default meant to be their strongest control power shows something's off.

Edited January 2, 2020 by RabbitUp

[Leogunner]

35 minutes ago, RabbitUp said:

Not a quitter, just a hypocrite.

 

When all other changes have gone through and the other ATs get to play with they shiny new toys, you can't just stand here and shake your cane and speak about power creep.

I sure the fuck can.

 

Who are you to tell me I can't?  Someone who can't put together a proper argument for why control ATs need super 30sec duration AoE holds that recharge in a minute and a half, that's who.

 

37 minutes ago, RabbitUp said:

This is the typical contrarian attitude you see at every suggestion ever made in the history of everything, while at the same time, conveniently ignoring what the actual state of the game is. Stunning every spawn good, nuking every spawn also good, holding every other spawn bad, City of Statues, gloom and doom.

Ignoring the actual state of the game?  My argument is the actual state of the game is suffering over and over because of being overtuned and adding stuff like this makes it worse.  And you obviously can't see the forest for the trees because holding a spawn has nothing to do with the amount of control THE POWERSET actually has.  If a control set had only AoE slows and maybe a KB but also only had this ONE AoE hold that recharged rather quickly (say 120sec), I don't think that's a bad thing or a problem...but having sets with AoE immobs + AoE confuse/stuns + a sleep patch/KB patch + 2 ST holds and a pet that KBs and holds ontop of if then asking for another AoE 30sec hold ontop of all that is fucking redundant and you're being facetious in ignoring that being my argument.  

[TechbotAlpha]

I'll leave the back and forth arguing to you lot.

 

I just wanted to chime in and say 'Heaven forbid we're made to feel powerful in one MMO again, out of the slurry of mediocrity'.
CoH was, and still is, the only game that made a character feel like a super powered individual. If I want to find a mob of 3 non-elite enemies a bit rough depending on class, I'd go back to playing WoW for feck sakes...

[Galaxy Brain]

40 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

having sets with AoE immobs + AoE confuse/stuns + a sleep patch/KB patch + 2 ST holds and a pet that KBs and holds ontop of if then asking for another AoE 30sec hold ontop of all that

That is the flipside of the problem. These control sets have too much control, and then they have 1 AoE control power that is super bad for no reason.

[Bossk_Hogg]

To those yowling about the OP of controller holds being reduced under the lol 4 minute recharge they currently are, are you aware that BLASTER mag 3 holds are on a 90 second timer, AS WELL AS the various nukes that also double as holds and stuns? My water/atomic is a much better "controller" than any controller I have.

 

Sure, you could gut the benefits of IO's and likely drive off a chunk of the population to other servers, but it seems rather than yelling at clouds, it's time to accept that this isn't some epeen measuring tryhard game like Darksouls. Balance the sets/AT's and THEN create harder difficulty settings. Use DO's in the meanwhile if you're too much of a badass to enjoy the game as is. Not buffing the various suck tier sets wont make all the titan weapons, plant doms, etc go away. It will just leave them as suck tier. 

Edited January 2, 2020 by Bossk_Hogg

[golstat2003]

As mentioned I can see them increasing the accuracy on the holds. I don't think Controllers/Doms are really hurting for control without this suggested buff though. YMMV.

[RabbitUp]

2 hours ago, Leogunner said:

I sure the fuck can.

 

Who are you to tell me I can't?  Someone who can't put together a proper argument for why control ATs need super 30sec duration AoE holds that recharge in a minute and a half, that's who.

Yes, you are free to further expose your hypocrisy.

 

As for my argument, I see you don't bother reading what the person you are responding to actually said. My argument from the start was to leave the recharge the same, remove the accuracy penalty and increase the mag to 4.

2 hours ago, Leogunner said:

Ignoring the actual state of the game?  My argument is the actual state of the game is suffering over and over because of being overtuned and adding stuff like this makes it worse.  And you obviously can't see the forest for the trees because holding a spawn has nothing to do with the amount of control THE POWERSET actually has.  If a control set had only AoE slows and maybe a KB but also only had this ONE AoE hold that recharged rather quickly (say 120sec), I don't think that's a bad thing or a problem...but having sets with AoE immobs + AoE confuse/stuns + a sleep patch/KB patch + 2 ST holds and a pet that KBs and holds ontop of if then asking for another AoE 30sec hold ontop of all that is fucking redundant and you're being facetious in ignoring that being my argument. 

Because control doesn't stack, unlike damage. If you have 2 fast recharging AoE attacks, you use both. If you have 2 fast recharging AoE CC, provided that each is capable of incapacitating the mob by itself, then one of them is redundant. You have no reason to layer your cc when the mob will be dead before the first one runs out. So, as long as stuff like Stalagmites or Seeds of Confusion recharge so fast to be up for each spawn, you have no reason to take and slot your AoE hold. 

 

This is not a matter of powercreep. I actually said before that reducing the recharge won't make a difference, unless you lower it to the 60-90s range the other AoE CC powers are, in which case you are making those obsolete.

 

This is about carving a niche for the AoE holds. When you see them bring skipped from most builds, this is something worth addressing. And since they *are* skipped, buffing them won't be straight powercreep, as you will have to give up on something else to make room for them. As for the niche, as I said, make them the hardest hitting CC in a Controller's arsenal. When dominators run around throwing mag 6 CC at everything, trollers can afford to have 1 mag 4 with a 4 minute cooldown.

 

[RabbitUp]

1 hour ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

To those yowling about the OP of controller holds being reduced under the lol 4 minute recharge they currently are, are you aware that BLASTER mag 3 holds are on a 90 second timer, AS WELL AS the various nukes that also double as holds and stuns? My water/atomic is a much better "controller" than any controller I have.

And that is the actual state of the game that is being ignored. When a blaster can compete with a controller at AoE cc, and you still have folks like Leogunner foaming at the mouth.

[Leogunner]

49 minutes ago, RabbitUp said:

Yes, you are free to further expose your hypocrisy.

 

As for my argument, I see you don't bother reading what the person you are responding to actually said. My argument from the start was to leave the recharge the same, remove the accuracy penalty and increase the mag to 4.

I see you don't know what hypocrisy means.

 

Also, you're the individual who is attacking my argument.  I re-stated my argument.  What you stated as your compromise is irrelevant to me defending my stance.

 

49 minutes ago, RabbitUp said:

Because control doesn't stack, unlike damage.

 

It does.  It's called propagation.  While the Tanker or Brute is limited to holding the aggro of 17 foes (or is it 18?) thus neutralizing their threat to squishier allies, a Controller or Dominator can throw down several AoE controls on different groups thus neutralizing more threat.  And bringing up damage is comparing apples to oranges here.  Damage has its own formulas, limits and considerations.  This is about aggro management and neutralizing threat.  In that capacity, among the other ATs whose role is to manage aggro, Doms and Controllers do it best.

 

49 minutes ago, RabbitUp said:

This is not a matter of powercreep. I actually said before that reducing the recharge won't make a difference, unless you lower it to the 60-90s range the other AoE CC powers are, in which case you are making those obsolete.

 

This is about carving a niche for the AoE holds. When you see them bring skipped from most builds, this is something worth addressing. And since they *are* skipped, buffing them won't be straight powercreep, as you will have to give up on something else to make room for them. As for the niche, as I said, make them the hardest hitting CC in a Controller's arsenal. When dominators run around throwing mag 6 CC at everything, trollers can afford to have 1 mag 4 with a 4 minute cooldown.

 

Everything you just said is power creep.  Everything!  Apparently, you don't know what hypocrisy means or what the term power creep describes.

Edited January 2, 2020 by Leogunner

[Leogunner]

2 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

That is the flipside of the problem. These control sets have too much control, and then they have 1 AoE control power that is super bad for no reason.

I don't think the sets have too much control.  It may be rather lopsided with which control power in the sets shine, but I feel the main problem is the prevalence of +recharge.  An AoE control power you have to rotate or save for emergencies isn't bad but blasting out all the powers that are meant to be amazing or strong all the time every other spawn is what makes things feel very off.

 

That's why I proposed changing them to facilitate other uses.  Having the Dom version be miniaturized by decreasing the target cap but decreasing the recharge and the Controller version do superior damage?  Kind of a blend of both my ideas? I think someone suggested making them "CC debuffs" that lower resistance to mez effects for a time, I think the only problem with that is it likely wouldn't receive much play in most content as foes tend not to last much longer after the mez wears off.

[RabbitUp]

11 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

I see you don't know what hypocrisy means.

 

Also, you're the individual who is attacking my argument.  I re-stated my argument.  What you stated as your compromise is irrelevant to me defending my stance.

You have no argument for me to attack. You have a typical contrarian stance. "Leave mah game alone, shit's too easy" is not an argument. Talking about powercreep as an ominous cloud lurking in the horizon, when you have everyone else throwing crashless nukes and instant snipes.

 

And I never made any compromises, this was my argument from the start. Swing and miss, yet again.

[Haijinx]

7 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Double post, but this is a valid point.... until its not. A ton of IOs have a *lot* more weight than others (LoTG, Defense, Rech in general, etc) which end up narrowing down that variety imo. I saw it suggested that IOs be diversified more to where you could build for Def but sacrifice Rech / Offense, and vice versa so that you actually have more variety. That being you have "3 paths" (Offense, Defense, Rech) and can either go HAM in one path, or dip halfway into a few or anything in between, but cant have all of it.

There is a lot of variety in IOs

 

Its just that because of game mechanics, certain things, like recharge, defense, recovery are far more useful.  

 

That makes sense in a game that was basically designed for SOs.

[oedipus_tex]

Somewhat off topic, but RE: fixing the game, I wouldn't try with the base game.

 

What I'd do is, in a new level 50 zone, introduce some new form of mezz that player characters have a native +1 Protection against. This mezz exists on some enemies in amounts of +0.33 to +0.5. Tankers might get an additional +1 protection. Running a PBAoE toggle (e.g. Arctic Air) would provide an additional +0.5 so we don't wreck PBAoE builds. 

 

This mezz would generally not last long, but would lock you out of using inspirations and your armors would drop. In addition, set bonuses are cancelled. Fighting 1 or 2 enemies at a time would make it unlikely for you to get pounded with it. But pull the entire map and you'll be in up to your eyeballs as it stacks and exceeds your native Protection.

 

IMO this is how all mezzes vs players should have worked from the start. But we are are where we are.

 

This is neither here nor there regarding AoE mezz changes.

[Leogunner]

44 minutes ago, RabbitUp said:

You have no argument for me to attack. You have a typical contrarian stance. "Leave mah game alone, shit's too easy" is not an argument. Talking about powercreep as an ominous cloud lurking in the horizon, when you have everyone else throwing crashless nukes and instant snipes.

And that's not being hypocritical.

 

Are you done? Or do you have an argument against the things I actually said rather than the words you're putting in my mouth?

[siolfir]

12 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

And that's not being hypocritical.

 

Are you done? Or do you have an argument against the things I actually said rather than the words you're putting in my mouth?

Now, now, it's so much easier to win an argument against a strawman! You really shouldn't have insulted their intelligence like that. It was totally uncalled for.

 

 

 

(see, isn't it fun making up things people say to argue against, everyone should do it)

[oedipus_tex]

I can summarize why the Accuracy of these powers should be unnerfed. The powers are no good until you IO. There is a huge disparity between the power on a build with global Accuracy versus a non-IO build.

 

Fixing the Accuracy just makes non-IO builds better. It doesn't do a whole lot to IO'ed ones because they already hit their targets.

 

The other issues with the powers are worthy of debate, but the Accuracy issue really isn't to me. It's an issue similar to why +Damage had to be moved out of Domination mode to the individual power level. Perma-doms, exclusively, were good Dominators. In the current game, the AoE holds, exclusively, are good decent on IOed builds.

 

 

Edited January 2, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[boggo2300]

7 hours ago, Redlynne said:

Here's an idea that will make EVERYONE angry ... but in relatively equal measure.

 

I would argue that global recharge bonuses from sets (only!) are ... overtuned.

Contemplate what would happen if global recharge bonuses from sets ... ALL SET BONUSES ... were cut in half.

 

So instead of +100% recharge from set bonuses, you'd be looking at more like a +50% recharge from set bonuses instead.

 

Such a change would "shift the center of gravity" involved in building for recharge from set bonuses towards Hasten, Alpha Slotting, Luck of the Gambler recharge IOs (which aren't set bonuses in and of themselves) and Force Feedback procs ... which would remain unchanged in this scenario.

 

Would that change a LOT of the builds out there?  No question.

Would it bring IO Sets performance profiles closer to what you can get out of SO slotting?  Unqualified yes.  IOs would still be "better" but not "as better" as they currently are.

 

Just something to think about, since it would be a LOT easier to nerf every global set bonus in this way (there's a limited number of them and it's a single parameter in a data table to edit) rather than trying to do a Clean Sheet Of Paper™ overhaul of ALL set bonuses for every single set so as to shift things around for how many slots do what.

Thats how you tell a compromise is a good one, both sides are equally upset about it