Focused Feedback: Tank Updates for January 6, 2020

[Haijinx]

3 hours ago, unknown said:

Qft

[Captain Powerhouse]

I think i have stated this (more than once) but:

 

I'm sure with enough desire, work and time anything is possible. However, even if right now i had access to a variable to change per-AT aggro, i would not use it.

If an actual aggro cap revision was ever pursued, I would instead hope it meant a whole revamp that looked something like this:

• Enemies above the aggro cap would try to find another enemy to attack.
• If no other enemy available, then they will attack the only available target from their current position with ranged attacks, but they will never move closer.
• If they cant attack from that position due to lack of ranged attacks, they would go back to their spawn points.
• If aggro cap count was modified, I would just lower the cap to 11 for all ATs and leave Tankers at their current count. This only if the previous 3 points happened.

 

 

[Number Six]

1 hour ago, siolfir said:

There isn't much that can't be coded within the game, but some things would require major refactoring while other things are essentially updating values. Given that we were led to believe that changing the aggro cap to an AT-specific value was closer to the former than the latter, after having the same argument to the same request so many times, people started just saying that things are "impossible" to get them to shut up about it so that other things could be worked on.

 

If it's a small project, can be done relatively quickly, and won't interfere with the code performance, then it can be done quietly behind the scenes without telling anyone because you can just set the values to the current cap across all ATs. Then the next time the request comes through, you can just quietly bump the number for Blasters and Brutes to 256 and see if anyone notices on their farming characters.

Right, the amount of work to implement has to be taken into some consideration. Changing how the AI works does require a lot of care and caution to not break other things, but the team at least has tried to be cautious and conservative about all changes*, so it's not significantly worse than anything else.

*(There are a lot of people who are very passionate about this game just the way it is, so we try to expand and enhance without pulling the rug out from under them)

 

The actual difficulty is also something that is often unknowable until somebody takes the time to actually go and evaluate what it would take. That's why I don't think it should be wielded as the sole overriding factor to shut down discussion.

 

Just as a purely hypothetical example, let's say the PVP community had a strong and overwhelming consensus that reverting to pre-I13 PVP was necessary and the only way to fix things. If that happened, despite it looking like an absolutely overwhelming amount of work, it might be worth examining if there was any way to automate parts of it and reduce the burden to something that would be manageable. Maybe possible, maybe not, but I wouldn't want to completely take that option off the table without even looking.

 

If somebody wants to say, "This is how the game has always worked, we shouldn't change it just because we can," that's a valid argument to make and by all means build that case. I just ask for people to please be careful about invoking "can't be done" when what they really should be doing is discussing why they don't like it.

[Replacement]

10 minutes ago, Number Six said:

Right, the amount of work to implement has to be taken into some consideration. Changing how the AI works does require a lot of care and caution to not break other things, but the team at least has tried to be cautious and conservative about all changes*, so it's not significantly worse than anything else.

*(There are a lot of people who are very passionate about this game just the way it is, so we try to expand and enhance without pulling the rug out from under them)

 

The actual difficulty is also something that is often unknowable until somebody takes the time to actually go and evaluate what it would take. That's why I don't think it should be wielded as the sole overriding factor to shut down discussion.

 

Just as a purely hypothetical example, let's say the PVP community had a strong and overwhelming consensus that reverting to pre-I13 PVP was necessary and the only way to fix things. If that happened, despite it looking like an absolutely overwhelming amount of work, it might be worth examining if there was any way to automate parts of it and reduce the burden to something that would be manageable. Maybe possible, maybe not, but I wouldn't want to completely take that option off the table without even looking.

 

If somebody wants to say, "This is how the game has always worked, we shouldn't change it just because we can," that's a valid argument to make and by all means build that case. I just ask for people to please be careful about invoking "can't be done" when what they really should be doing is discussing why they don't like it.

This is cool and I 100% agree with your perspective, but...

 

That just means we should be changing how we're phrasing the contention.  The issue isn't truly "it's impossible to program" as much as "the developers have made it clear it is not in the cards right now" which has been the prevailing Captain Powerhouse stance in previous tanker threads, and I believe Leandro even posted which lines of code to check out to see the difficulty ourselves at some point (I think that was the aggro cap he did that on, anyway).

 

As for the standard code rant: I think it's douchey, mean, and overdone.  But the important part of it is hammering in that "nothing is an easy fix."  When people come to these forums and attack you guys for not fixing something they feel should be the utmost priority and is "a simple fix," they deserve to get knocked down a peg, and that is when the standard code rant is just A-OK by me.

[siolfir]

10 minutes ago, Number Six said:

Right, the amount of work to implement has to be taken into some consideration. Changing how the AI works does require a lot of care and caution to not break other things, but the team at least has tried to be cautious and conservative about all changes*, so it's not significantly worse than anything else.

*(There are a lot of people who are very passionate about this game just the way it is, so we try to expand and enhance without pulling the rug out from under them)

 

The actual difficulty is also something that is often unknowable until somebody takes the time to actually go and evaluate what it would take. That's why I don't think it should be wielded as the sole overriding factor to shut down discussion.

 

Just as a purely hypothetical example, let's say the PVP community had a strong and overwhelming consensus that reverting to pre-I13 PVP was necessary and the only way to fix things. If that happened, despite it looking like an absolutely overwhelming amount of work, it might be worth examining if there was any way to automate parts of it and reduce the burden to something that would be manageable. Maybe possible, maybe not, but I wouldn't want to completely take that option off the table without even looking.

 

If somebody wants to say, "This is how the game has always worked, we shouldn't change it just because we can," that's a valid argument to make and by all means build that case. I just ask for people to please be careful about invoking "can't be done" when what they really should be doing is discussing why they don't like it.

Yes. Purely hypothetical. Because there's no possible way the PvP community would come to a consensus on such a thing*.

 

As for jumping into something "simple" only to realize that you've exploded a huge can of worms that breaks dozens of other systems... been there, done that. That's why I typically lean on the side of things being more complex than they seem to be. But I wanted to present the counterargument for using "can't be done" as the shortcut for "it's harder to do than you think" and get in a couple of jokes at the end.

 

 

* - prior to the i13 patch notes

[Replacement]

I'm super effing thrilled about this character copy tool.  

 

Does someone know the name/link to that thing that tracks XP?  I think someone made a widget meant to look like the CoH UI thing that tracks how much experience you're earning, anyway? 
 

Now that I can make perfect character copies, I'd like to run some tests in both environments and I think an XP tracker might be a good way to go.

[Number Six]

Cool, and again I don't want people in this thread to think I'm calling them out on this specific conversation, since there was some prior back and forth on the topic. It just reminded me that I've been meaning to say something about it as a more general matter.

[Sovera]

4 hours ago, Number Six said:

My opinion is that code should never be used as an excuse. Not to pick on this instance in particular, but there are a lot of people who quote the standard code rant in various threads and it's a bit of a pet peeve. I see a lot of assertions about things being "impossible" that are clearly not, like fixing the Pet AI without having to use hacky workarounds. On the other hand, there are a lot of things that we technically can do, but it doesn't necessarily follow that we should do.

 

Per-AT aggro caps are technically possible with a small amount of work, but I'm not convinced that they're a good idea. The cap exists for a reason -- if you are fighting very large groups then everybody has to think about aggro management and survivability a little, and you can't completely ignore the mechanic by bringing a tanker.

 

IMO any discussion over such a thing should be focused solely on whether or not it makes for better gameplay and is likely to produce a better result than keeping the cap uniform, considering all aspects of what makes a good game.

I had a bit of a mustard rising on this when I made a thread in the Bug forums that Posi 1 is bugged since if we start the TF at level 8 (minimum level) we don't increase our level while in it and are still at level 8 when we reach Doc Buzzsaw... who spawns as a level 15. It's the only mob who does (I presume, since being a +7 enemy it is simply impossible to defeat it)  and if this happens by accident or because none of the characters is higher than eight, then the TF cannot be completed. The general consensus seemed to be 'it's coding, all AVs spawn at max level for the TF SO THERE IS NOTHING THAT CAN BE DONE'.

 

Excuse you? It's coding. I'm 100% sure something can be done including and up to removing the current boss and replacing it for a custom made one, or, simpler, make the TF minimum level 10 since at least a +5 character *can* be defeated albeit with a lot of difficulty.

[nicoliy]

So are we close to going live 🙂

[Number Six]

1 hour ago, Sovera said:

I had a bit of a mustard rising on this when I made a thread in the Bug forums that Posi 1 is bugged since if we start the TF at level 8 (minimum level) we don't increase our level while in it and are still at level 8 when we reach Doc Buzzsaw... who spawns as a level 15. It's the only mob who does (I presume, since being a +7 enemy it is simply impossible to defeat it)  and if this happens by accident or because none of the characters is higher than eight, then the TF cannot be completed.

Bit of a tangent, but the spawn behavior is correct, while the not-leveling-while-on-a-TF behavior is the bug.

 

The reason for that is that you used to level up during a TF -- either natively or along with whoever you were sidekicked to. That broke when they introduced super sidekicking in Issue 16. Ever since then, upon starting a TF, the entire team gets locked to the level that the leader was when they started the TF. That means starting a TF at the minimum level, formerly a staple of static teams and SG runs, instead makes the entire TF a painful slog.

 

It's a known bug that will be addressed at some point, just a matter of time and priority.

[Haijinx]

I've only earned 1 debt badge in HC and that TF thing was the reason.

[EmperorSteele]

4 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

• If aggro cap count was modified, I would just lower the cap to 11 for all ATs and leave Tankers at their current count. This only if the previous 3 points happened.

 

 

 

But that... that's the opposite of what everyone else seems to want =/ Also, you'd probably have to adjust every AoE in the game to not target 16 critters anymore.

I agree that herding whole maps was redonkulously broken and that going back to that would be bad, but since the most targets that most powers can hit is 16 anyway, (excluding Incarnate AoEs), why NOT let tanks pull like, I dunno, 24 dudes at a time? It's not like their tag-along blaster is gonna hit them all anyway.

[Haijinx]

2 minutes ago, EmperorSteele said:

 

But that... that's the opposite of what everyone else seems to want =/ Also, you'd probably have to adjust every AoE in the game to not target 16 critters anymore.

I agree that herding whole maps was redonkulously broken and that going back to that would be bad, but since the most targets that most powers can hit is 16 anyway, (excluding Incarnate AoEs), why NOT let tanks pull like, I dunno, 24 dudes at a time? It's not like their tag-along blaster is gonna hit them all anyway.

Don't forget that it is not currently possible.

 

I for one would suggest developing the possibility would be a waste of time.  

[siolfir]

6 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

I've only earned 1 debt badge in HC and that TF thing was the reason.

I suicide to get them, because patrol xp makes it easy and both High Pain Threshold and the freebie rez at the P2W vendor require it.

[siolfir]

1 minute ago, Haijinx said:

Don't forget that it is not currently possible.

 

I for one would suggest developing the possibility would be a waste of time.  

If it's only ever going to be tweaked down, I agree, no matter how little the amount of work would be.

[Number Six]

6 minutes ago, EmperorSteele said:

I agree that herding whole maps was redonkulously broken and that going back to that would be bad, but since the most targets that most powers can hit is 16 anyway, (excluding Incarnate AoEs), why NOT let tanks pull like, I dunno, 24 dudes at a time? It's not like their tag-along blaster is gonna hit them all anyway.

One possible reason is that increasing the aggro cap for tanks makes it less desirable to have more than one tank on the team, not more, since a single tanker can pick up everything.

[Troo]

yep

[Haijinx]

Also since IO incarnate Tankers have excess survivability it doesn't mean anything to the Tanker to have more aggro.  

 

But it makes things even safer for everyone else.  

 

Which just makes the game easier. 

[skoryy]

6 hours ago, Number Six said:

Per-AT aggro caps are technically possible with a small amount of work, but I'm not convinced that they're a good idea. The cap exists for a reason -- if you are fighting very large groups then everybody has to think about aggro management and survivability a little, and you can't completely ignore the mechanic by bringing a tanker.

Just re-post this every time someone brings up the aggro cap.

[Captain Powerhouse]

2 hours ago, Number Six said:

One possible reason is that increasing the aggro cap for tanks makes it less desirable to have more than one tank on the team, not more, since a single tanker can pick up everything.

That’s one reason. Outside of teams, an increased aggro/follow cap just makes farming even easier, and that’s already a disproportionately rewarding activity. 

[Mystic_Cross]

Ok, so with these tanker changes... is there supposed to be a noticeable increase in damage/kill speed or something? Because running my level 23 /Em tanker on live through a few missions in Stephanie Peebles arc, followed by running an exact duplicate of the same tank on Pineapple, in the same arc, didn't feel noticeably different... at all. Not even sure if whirling hands was hitting in a wider radius, it really felt about the same as live. Granted, this was just a quick "feel" test, with no data/numbers noted or compared.

 

The only noticeable difference was not using quite as much Endurance on Pineapple, which I attribute to all the accolades being insta-unlocked upon character creation (alt on live has no accolades). Used mainly level 25 common IO's on both, with a few uniques (performance shifter +end, etc.). Pineapple build was all put together before I started so I could hop on live and run a few missions, then immediately go to pineapple and do the same, back to back. Seems like Bruising was removed only to modify base damage to be equal to what it was with Bruising? I was under the impression that we'd be getting a bit more "oomph!" out of it... am I wrong? 

 

I'll have some time tomorrow afternoon to compare numbers and what not, but if it's just about keeping the same numbers without needing bruise, well... that would still kinda feel like an overall nerf. At least bruise had the potential to increase team damage on a target to some degree. Not that I had any love for the mechanic, but If we're doing the same damage as before, and also benefitting the team less... well, there's already 101 reasons to take a brute instead of a tank on a team, don't really need another. 

 

Disclaimer: I really need sleep, 42 hours and counting... so pardon me if I'm all wrong right now XD

[Replacement]

24 minutes ago, Mystic_Cross said:

Ok, so with these tanker changes... is there supposed to be a noticeable increase in damage/kill speed or something? Because running my level 23 /Em tanker on live through a few missions in Stephanie Peebles arc, followed by running an exact duplicate of the same tank on Pineapple, in the same arc, didn't feel noticeably different... at all. Not even sure if whirling hands was hitting in a wider radius, it really felt about the same as live. Granted, this was just a quick "feel" test, with no data/numbers noted or compared.

 

The only noticeable difference was not using quite as much Endurance on Pineapple, which I attribute to all the accolades being insta-unlocked upon character creation (alt on live has no accolades). Used mainly level 25 common IO's on both, with a few uniques (performance shifter +end, etc.). Pineapple build was all put together before I started so I could hop on live and run a few missions, then immediately go to pineapple and do the same, back to back. Seems like Bruising was removed only to modify base damage to be equal to what it was with Bruising? I was under the impression that we'd be getting a bit more "oomph!" out of it... am I wrong? 

 

I'll have some time tomorrow afternoon to compare numbers and what not, but if it's just about keeping the same numbers without needing bruise, well... that would still kinda feel like an overall nerf. At least bruise had the potential to increase team damage on a target to some degree. Not that I had any love for the mechanic, but If we're doing the same damage as before, and also benefitting the team less... well, there's already 101 reasons to take a brute instead of a tank on a team, don't really need another. 

 

Disclaimer: I really need sleep, 42 hours and counting... so pardon me if I'm all wrong right now XD

This is mostly EM.

If all of the following are true...

• You're strongly single target
• You use your tier 1 regardless of server
• You're solo

... You will likely not notice a difference.

 

Things that should make the changes noticeable, though I don't mean night-and-day:

• Partying with someone who offers recharge or damage buffs
• Using a lot of aoe, including offensive toggles
• Running leadership (and some sort of performance parser. I cannot imagine noticing the difference on this with the naked eye)

Edited January 11, 2020 by Replacement

[Wavicle]

41 minutes ago, Replacement said:

 

 

Things that should make the changes noticeable, though I don't mean night-and-day:

• Partying with someone who offers recharge or damage buffs
• Using a lot of aoe, including offensive toggles
• Running leadership (and some sort of performance parser. I cannot imagine noticing the difference on this with the naked eye)

Are they noticeable enough to have the effect that this was all about creating?

[ApesAmongUs]

17 hours ago, siolfir said:

If it's a small project, can be done relatively quickly

And since it's so simple, it has the effect of making tanks into Brute-lite.  A solution being easy is a good indicator that it's a bad solution.  If a solution is easy to implement AND correct, then someone would have tried it by now.

[Gobbledigook]

I think at this point something needs to be released and let the true testing begin. You can always make small adjustments where needed after a month or so.