General Feedback: Page 5 Build 5

[Bopper]

4 minutes ago, nyttyn said:

It came up in discussions on the discord that there are other powers that are the same across archetypes - Sleet and Frozen Rain being two such examples. Is the intent to eventually change all existing such powers to match their "Correct" value scales? Including Leadership?

I could be wrong, but I believe a lot of the pseudopet powers do not use different scales based on AT (I guess they used defender values). So you would see unintended stronger buffs/debuffs coming from these powers for non-defense ATs. I believe HC has better ways of handling these discrepancies with their i25 engine, which allows for correctly identifying AT scalar (amongst many many other things). So that being said, I expect all pseudopets that are using the wrong AT modifier to eventually use the correct one.

[ScarySai]

There's no reason to fix it, though. Paragon clearly didn't have an issue with it, why do this now?

 

Where did this idea that the "intended" scales had to be 100% adhered to come from? It's nonsense. Rain, sleet and patch are fine. Leave them alone.

[Troo]

Silly discord discussions always get pwned by the level headed forum collective. Everyone knows that.

[Bopper]

6 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

There's no reason to fix it, though. Paragon clearly didn't have an issue with it, why do this now?

 

Where did this idea that the "intended" scales had to be 100% adhered to come from? It's nonsense. Rain, sleet and patch are fine. Leave them alone.

I'm guessing Paragon didnt have a good solution for fixing it. They just created a single pet and gave it to everybody as opposed to making a scaled version of each pet based on AT. Seems like a simple solution, but there is no way for me knowing what their limitations were on live. 

[csr]

I'm not quite sure why Twilight's Grasp and Tar Patch got special treatment here.  It seems to me that such adjustments should be part of a general support set balance pass.  There are lots of powers that don't vary the way they should between support ATs, and not all of them are pseudo-pet powers.  Speed Boost, for example.  This just seems out of left field.

[ScarySai]

4 minutes ago, Bopper said:

I'm guessing Paragon didnt have a good solution for fixing it.

You're assuming they would have wanted to fix it to begin with.

[Bopper]

2 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

You're assuming they would have wanted to fix it to begin with.

Why are we assuming they wouldn't? Throughout the game AT modifiers are used, and those scales are consistent. But there are bugs, there are mistakes, and things get overlooked...even ones that are small and possibly benign.

 

However, if let's say a Controller had the same support power as a Defender, and they did the exact same effect (same buff/debuff amount), then that is not working as intended.

[summers]

I'm not sure if this change is worth the 'cost', and that cost is the faith/happiness/whatever you might call it of a portion of the community.

 

I'm not saying this change is necessarily a good or bad thing, but with every change at least some people will be unhappy about it. Is this change so important that we should go through with that? Perhaps Paragon Studios decided not to do it because they knew there was almost zero benefit to the change and only community backlash.

 

Again, I'll reiterate I'm not making any statement about whether the mechanics should or should not be changed, just wondering aloud whether it's worth the angst.

[ScarySai]

8 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Why are we assuming they wouldn't?

Because for the entire game's history, for every port of those sets and in every single balance discussion, it never came up.

 

Now I'm to believe it's an issue and it needs to be fixed, as rage was, because of a technical "rule" that wasn't adhered to before.

 

Side note: If this goes further than debuffs, Blizzard's on the table next, good luck, corruptors. 

Edited March 14, 2020 by ScarySai

[csr]

14 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Why are we assuming they wouldn't? Throughout the game AT modifiers are used, and those scales are consistent. But there are bugs, there are mistakes, and things get overlooked...even ones that are small and possibly benign.

 

However, if let's say a Controller had the same support power as a Defender, and they did the exact same effect (same buff/debuff amount), then that is not working as intended.

I tend to agree with this, which is why these two fixes by themselves stand out to me.  My first thought was "where is the Speed Boost fix?"  My second was "should Defender SB get buffed, or everyone else get nerfed?"  I think the balance issue is much broader than those two Dark powers and should be handled more systematically.

Edited March 14, 2020 by csr

[ScarySai]

It's far too late to start systematically nerfing all non-defender buff/debuff values. 

 

It would just feel bad, and there's zero reason to do it, especially since we're not even official yet. 

 

Do what Paragon did, bring under performers up, only nerf when absolutely neccesary. Bio, most of the i25 sets and TW come to mind. I don't want them nerfed either, but if you're to start anywhere, start there. Not with freaking tar patch.

Edited March 14, 2020 by ScarySai

[summers]

8 minutes ago, csr said:

I tend to agree with this, which is why these two fixes by themselves stand out to me.  My first thought was "where is the Speed Boost fix?"  My second was "should Defender SB get buffed, or everyone else get nerfed?"  I think the balance issue is much broader than those two Dark powers and should be handled more systematically.

I don't think every 'type of buff' is subject to the same Defender/Corruptor modifiers.

 

For instance Radiation Emission / Accelerated Metabolism both grant equal amounts of +recharge and +recovery, and Kinetics / Speed Boost follows suit. Time Manipulation / Temporal Selection similarly grants the same +recharge between Defender and Corruptor.

Edited March 14, 2020 by summers

[Bopper]

25 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Because for the entire game's history, for every port of those sets and in every single balance discussion, it never came up.

 

Now I'm to believe it's an issue and it needs to be fixed, as rage was, because of a technical "rule" that wasn't adhered to before.

 

Side note: If this goes further than debuffs, Blizzard's on the table next, good luck, corruptors. 

For corruptor's, I imagine their AT modifier would actually increase the damage, if Blizzard gets tweaked. However the debuffs would likely shrink.

 

As for the history of the game, again, I dont know the limitations as to why pseudopets did not adhere to AT modifiers. I'll let a dev chime in on their opinion with that, as they know far more about the mechanics of the game (and its history) than I do. 

 

My hope is that if AT modifiers are being correctly applied to all powers now (pseudopets in particular), that it properly scales both ways. For example, I dont want to see a Defender version of Blizzard doing more damage than a Corruptor's version just because Blizzard is a primary power for Defenders, whereas it is secondary for Corruptor. I would hope the modifier is for ranged damage, and the Corruptor version gets buffed.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Bopper
Mistook blizzard for another power. Omitted the part that does not apply

[csr]

15 minutes ago, summers said:

I don't think every 'type of buff' is subject to the same Defender/Corruptor modifiers.

 

For instance Radiation Emission / Accelerated Metabolism both grant equal amounts of +recharge and +recovery, and Kinetics / Speed Boost follows suit. Time Manipulation / Temporal Selection similarly grants the same +recharge between Defender and Corruptor.

I know they don't.  I was responding to Bopper's comment that if support powers on Defenders and Controllers do the same thing then it's a bug.  I agreed with that sentiment.  +Recharge and +Recovery are key buffs, they really shouldn't be the same for Masterminds, Controllers, Corruptors and Defenders.

Edited March 14, 2020 by csr

[ScarySai]

1 minute ago, Bopper said:

For example, I dont want to see a Defender version of Blizzard doing more damage than a Corruptor's version just because Blizzard is a primary power for Defenders

That's not how it works...

[Bopper]

2 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

That's not how it works...

Explain how it works...

 

Edit, my bad, I confused Blizzard with a different support power. In this case I absolutely would expect Corruptor version of Blizzard to do more damage if AT modifiers are currently set to Defender

Edited March 14, 2020 by Bopper

[JayboH]

3 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Cant get into details right now, but Trick Arrow is getting tons of love in Page 6

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

It's happening!!!!!!!!!!!!  Holy crap Trickshooter!  All these years!!

 

Poison and Energy Melee next?

[Parabola]

AT modifiers are part of the fundamental ruleset of the game. In my opinion it is absolutely correct that these should be applied consistently.

 

The devs have already demonstrated their willingness to try to buff underperforming sets so I imagine that if any set or power is deemed to be underperforming across the AT's after these modifiers are applied it will then be buffed. Indeed if an individual AT is decided to need one of it's modifiers changing then I imagine that too would be on the table. But to get to that point the powers should be functioning consistently in the first place.

[ROBOKiTTY]

1 hour ago, Bopper said:

I'm guessing Paragon didnt have a good solution for fixing it. They just created a single pet and gave it to everybody as opposed to making a scaled version of each pet based on AT. Seems like a simple solution, but there is no way for me knowing what their limitations were on live. 

Paragon had adjusted pseudopets in the past, by making new versions. Defender blizzard was a good example (it used to use the blaster pseudopet).

 

HC is 'fixing' them in the exact same way, by making new versions of the pseudopets.

 

Cryptic/Paragon didn't always just use a single pseudopet for all versions of the same power. Shield charge and lightning rod are pseudopets that never did the same damage across all ATs.

 

Dark affinity was a very late addition to the game where Paragon gave controllers a revamped version of dark miasma. They had a chance to fix it then if it was really an error, so it seems intentional that they kept the same pseudopet. Lately there's been too much 'fixing' of things that were either likely or definitively pragmatic design choices rather than bugs. HC seems to have an arbitrary goal of achieving some ideal state of consistency even if it means changing how things have worked since the beginning and nerfing sets that don't deserve nerfing.

 

Odd how the forums almost unanimously pooh-poohed me when I last brought it up.

Edited March 14, 2020 by ROBOKiTTY

[ROBOKiTTY]

36 minutes ago, parabola said:

AT modifiers are part of the fundamental ruleset of the game. In my opinion it is absolutely correct that these should be applied consistently.

Cryptic/Paragon devs were never strictly bound by a rule like that. They had the means of disabling AT scaling, and they frequently made separate versions of powers with different base numbers.

 

HC also had the option of buffing the defender version of the power. They didn't have to nerf the other versions.

Edited March 14, 2020 by ROBOKiTTY

[Bopper]

4 minutes ago, ROBOKiTTY said:

Dark affinity was a very late addition to the game where Paragon gave controllers a revamped version of dark miasma. They had a chance to fix it then if it was really an error, so it seems intentional that they kept the same pseudopet.

Excellent breakdown of the history. I did not know about defenders using a Blaster version of Blizzard. As for Darkness Affinity, I had to look it up. Paragon Wiki shows the power went live in March of 2012, and I believe the game was announced as cancelled at the end of August of 2012 (where I believe all development halted). Perhaps they had a chance to correct it when they ported it over, but it's also possible they rushed it out and never had time to fix it before being fired.

[Bopper]

@Jimmyin the patch notes there were a couple of items I was curious about.

 

1) Can you provide more details about what the KB changes are, and if it might affect KD or KU? Is there anything in particular we should look for if we test it?

 

2) You.mentioned there were some powers that were erroneously labeled as both Range and AoE. They are no longer dual labelled, but can you specify as to what each attack is now labeled as?

[darkgob]

Quote

Goldie's red sleeve has finally been fixed and is now actually gold

To clarify, this is apparently referring to this character: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/File:Goldie1-800.jpg

 

But I don't see any difference at all:

 

[Jimmy]

3 hours ago, parabola said:

AT modifiers are part of the fundamental ruleset of the game. In my opinion it is absolutely correct that these should be applied consistently.

 

The devs have already demonstrated their willingness to try to buff underperforming sets so I imagine that if any set or power is deemed to be underperforming across the AT's after these modifiers are applied it will then be buffed. Indeed if an individual AT is decided to need one of it's modifiers changing then I imagine that too would be on the table. But to get to that point the powers should be functioning consistently in the first place.

Pretty much this.

[Jimmy]

2 hours ago, Bopper said:

@Jimmyin the patch notes there were a couple of items I was curious about.

 

1) Can you provide more details about what the KB changes are, and if it might affect KD or KU? Is there anything in particular we should look for if we test it?

 

2) You.mentioned there were some powers that were erroneously labeled as both Range and AoE. They are no longer dual labelled, but can you specify as to what each attack is now labeled as?

1 - All KB/KD/KU powers. They should function identically to before - the changes we made were for something new in the future.

2 - They should now all be correctly tagged - meaning that if they're a single target ranged power, they'll be tagged as ranged. If they are an AoE of any kind, they'll be tagged as AoE.