Rollback Recent Proc Changes!!

[Monos King]

From my last thread on Mastermind high demands:

 

Masterminds have been struggling to find IO compatibility for what feels like eons, desperately dispensing pets with little end-game enhancement backing. While masterminds, like any class, will be fine once maximized through incarnates and the lot, the reward and efficiency from enhancements is both limiting and necessary to the extent that upgrading the class can feel like litte more than a catalog of constraints. Not surprisingly, I've seen many become disinterested in the archetype as a result. Here are some suggestions (and a few definite must fixs) to help brighten up that dismay.

 

• Return player proc to Soulbound Allegiance

Debuffers such as cold and therm with the knowledge have found GREAT utility in the ability to have a minor build up through the faculties of their own build, with no outside source. The Boost Up from Soulbound is definitely nothing new or unique, but was a surefire assurance that your next Heat Exhaustion or Benumb or Weaken was going to hit your elusive opponent. This was true of both PvP as well as PvE instances.

•  Return pet proc to Gaussian's when placed into a pet with +to hit

These last two were changes recently added to the beta server, and they really need to be reverted as quickly as possible. Mastermind IO advantage was hyper low before, and this change removes a cherished, long recognized benefit to powers that thug users have benefitted from for ages. Enforcers gaining the boost up proc was considered integral and removing it without warning or request was truly silly. This one NEEDs to come back.

 

Additionally, even more IO proc changes were dispensed that were wholly unecessary, and I will address both those and changes that should NOT occur.

 

• Return Call of the Sandmans multi-fire Proc

AoE sleep effects are not an effect that I personally make use of, however I haven't seen a single complaint in all these years warranting the sudden change. At most, it is a nice increased survivabilty measure for those that select the move. In its current state, I cannot see the proc having ANY purpose what so ever. Trolls/doms have pitiful health. It should be returned, I do not like the precedent these changes are setting AT ALL.

 

• Maintain Changes to Power Transfer multi-fire

With the advent of electrical affinity, and its quick recharge AoE +endurances, this proc should be kept in it's current beta state as single fire. Energizing Circuit becomes too potent with power transfer slotted, and while I have no issue with that I realize others will find ire in its superiority. Slotting the proc in something like Inexhaustable or Stamina maintains the effectiveness of the Power Transfer proc in a manner analogous to Panacea, so I think it is in a fine position.

 

• Sustain Current Theft of Essence proc, make it UNIQUE

The effectiveness of this proc is pretty impressive. But, it does essentially transform certain heals into Dark Consumption, so if it is intended to be nerfed it should be made unique. A single powerset can't even have many Accurate Heals (at most 3 if you are bio/dark or bio/rad), so there couldn't be many existing players stuffing an obscene amount of this proc into their builds. Let me state i am NOT FOR ANY KIND OF NERF ON THESE PROCS. I would like them to be left alone. But in the event the devs are considering changing this one next, which they should not but current events suggests, this should be the only alteration made. 

 

Every AoE heal of this nature sans Dark Regeneration already has a +end component, making this proc a sort of natural conclusion for many. But IOs should be effective, and all of these unwanted changes reduce the procs to completely pointless (besides Power Transfer).

[macskull]

4 minutes ago, Monos King said:

• Return player proc to Soulbound Allegiance

Sometime around I11 (either when it was in beta or shortly after it went live) Castle said the power proc'ing on the player was working as intended. Of course you can't really search the old forums and I haven't been able to find the post in question, but the point is there.

Edited March 15, 2020 by macskull

[Monos King]

4 minutes ago, macskull said:

Sometime around I11 (either when it was in beta or shortly after it went live) Castle said the power proc'ing on the player was working as intended. Of course you can't really search the old forums and I haven't been able to find the post in question, but the point is there.

Oh cool, so I can use the purist argument to convince Power House to change it back. Nice.

Seriously it causes no issue at all, it was purely beneficial on situational basis.

Edited March 15, 2020 by Monos King

[rhodox]

As someone who used Call of the Sandman in Salt Crystals on my earth/savage dominator, I'm completely baffled by this change.

 

I don't want to feel like I'm being negative for the sake of being negative here, but I do want to share my experiences with the proc:

 

Salt Crystals is largely seen as a skip power on almost all earth builds, and for good reason - most aoe sleeps are terrible, particularly in team situations. My experience with the power slotted with this proc, is that if things are utterly dire, sometimes, if RNG likes me, it functions as an emergency stop-gap heal on a long recharge that might buy me a couple seconds for an actual control to recharge and properly handle the situation.

 

Best case scenario, I was typically looking at a 15-25% heal when and if it decided to cooperate, and that was firing it into the middle of 1-2 large team groups. The heal, individually, is so minor that unless you got lucky with a big set of hits it was hard to even tell if it had even activated, and even then, a lot of the time it wasn't enough to stop a squash anyways. If it becomes single use, the effect becomes so anemic that you may as well change it to something entirely different than it is now, because that slot would be better spent on just about anything else.

 

I'm not sure who this change is for, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone complain about this IO, and honestly, in terms of things that you can do with various combinations of IOs and powers, I'm not even sure how this got on the radar, it just feels weirdly and arbitrarily punitive for the few people that already picked these 'bad' (aoe sleep) powers, because the IO almost, if you squinted right, gave you a sort of reason to maybe take them.

[ScarySai]

Gotta love it when CP says something was unintended, when the guy who made the proc said it was intended.

 

Soulbound was confirmed as WAI regarding proccing for the player, Gaussian's is also intended, as we have no reason to think otherwise besides CP's word. You can slot Enforcers for +tohit, as they have tactics, Gaussian's procs in aura abilities like Tactics. No brainer, he can disagree with that and justify a nerf with his own reasoning, but it's not a bug, unintentional, or unintended, quite the opposite.

 

No comment on sleep powers and IO interactions with them, none of my characters use them.

Edited March 16, 2020 by ScarySai

[Vanden]

6 hours ago, macskull said:

Sometime around I11 (either when it was in beta or shortly after it went live) Castle said the power proc'ing on the player was working as intended. Of course you can't really search the old forums and I haven't been able to find the post in question, but the point is there.

That's a quote that should really be found, because I don't think that proc being intended to affect players too passes the smell test.

[Monos King]

29 minutes ago, Faultline said:

If you want to use the "purist argument", then every single proc in the game should no longer use PPM and go back to a percentage chance per target.

 

Call of the Sandman, even after being nerfed to only apply once, is still better than it used to be on the live servers, because it fires reliably. On the "purist" system, it fires 10% of the time per target. In an AOE it will still be rare to be healed more than once, and in single target powers, toggles and autos it becomes much, much worse immediately. The only place where it becomes better is in fast-firing DOTs like rains.

 

This is a post from Synapse, the original developer who actually implemented PPM, discussing some of the changes he was planning to implement before shutdown: http://web.archive.org/web/20120906114927/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showpost.php?p=4215135&postcount=208

 

As it is exceedingly clear, the PPM system was not done being balanced at shutdown, and major changes were planned to reduce the final proc rate. We are being extremely cautious and conservative in comparison. So please, drop the purist argument completely. Unless you want to return all procs to a percentage chance to fire, it's invalid.

That was a joke. My actual points are still valid.

The current changes to Sandman being better than they were on the live server is also rather meaningless, because if that's the case it just means they are slightly less pointless to get as compared to live. Evidently, changes to its efficiency were needed. Based off of what you said, these changes were made, and were now rescinded. That recent rescindment really warrants reversal.

 

Soulbound still needs to be put back to the way it was because there was no reason for it to be changed. It just accentuates the already troublesome MM IO situation.

Gaussians need to be put back for the same reason.

 

Unless there is some grand plan that's intended to perfect IOs for MMs and the lot that would make these changes understandable and needed from the future foreground, this is just a big, needless, upset. And if there IS that grand plan, it would make more sense to install all these changes at once with full player awareness of said improvements so we can avoid tremors like this one. Right now it just looks like isolated deprecations that underscore existing issues. 

[siolfir]

23 minutes ago, Faultline said:

The "changes to efficiency" done in Issue 24 beta were not done, and were being adjusted downwards, as per the original dev's post above.

Maybe I'm missing the context here, because that's not what I got out of that post.

 

Full text, highlight added, dropped in a spoiler tag so it can be collapsed:

Spoiler

 Re: Enhancement Proc Changes

---

I've read some good points in this thread and I wanted to let you know I am continuing to read all of your comments. I do want to stress that in most cases this change will increase proc chances. I'll give you guys some concrete numbers once I have them, but my internal examples I am using look pretty good.

Before we continue let me explain the math. There seems to be some confusion regarding how Procs Per Minute work. Here's the formula that is currently in game:

If power is a click: (PPM * (Base Recharge Time + Time To Activate)) / (60 * Area Factor)

This basically adds your Recharge Time and the power's Cast Time and Divides them by the 60 times the size of the power's area of effect (if any) and then multiplies it by the power's procs per minute. In short: powers with long recharge times and cast times proc more than powers with low recharge times and cast times. Additionally, powers with large area factors have a reduced chance to proc as well.

If power is not a click: (PPM * Activate Period) / (60 * Area Factor)

This applies to powers like damage toggles and the like.

The proposed change would do the following:

1) Increase the PPM value by 50-75% (So a 4 PPM proc would become 6 or 7 PPM) NOTE: The exact amount is still being figured out.
2) Change the Base Recharge in the formula to your actual power's recharge. This is the part where I think a lot of you are scared. I'll show you an example of how this will actually play out in game later in this post so you can decide how much this will actually impact you.
3) Procs will have a maximum chance to trigger. I'm leaning toward 90%. Someone mentioned a minimum chance to proc. I really like this idea and I am thinking about this value being 10%, but I'll have to test this internally to find out if this breaks anything.
4) All non-PPM enhancements with a chance to trigger less than 100% will use PPMs. (Note: Enhancements like Numina's Convalesence: Regen/Recovery will not be affected by this change as they have 100% chance to trigger).

Okay, now onto the example. Let's use Assassin's Strike slotted with Stalker's Guile: +Rech/Chance to Hide (Standard):

CURRENT PPMs
Assassin Strike
Base Recharge: 15 seconds
Cast Time: 1 second
Area Factor: 1

Stalker's Guile: +Rech/Chance to Hide
PPM: 4

Proc Chance: 106.7%

PROPOSED PPMs
Assassin Strike
Base Recharge: 15
Cast Time: 1 second
Area Factor

Stalker's Guile: +Rech/Chance to Hide
PPM: 6

0% Global Recharge/Power Recharge
Proc Chance: 90%

0% Global Recharge/95% Power Recharge
Proc Chance: 86.9%

100% Global Recharge/95% Power Recharge
Proc Chance: 60.8%

200% Global Recharge/95% Power Recharge
Proc Chance: 48%

300% Global Recharge/95% Power Recharge
Proc Chance: 40.3%

Superior Stalker's Guile: +Rech/Chance to Hide

0% Global Recharge/Power Recharge
Proc Chance: 90%

0% Global Recharge/95% Power Recharge
Proc Chance: 90%

100% Global Recharge/95% Power Recharge
Proc Chance: 76.1%

200% Global Recharge/95% Power Recharge
Proc Chance: 60%

300% Global Recharge/95% Power Recharge
Proc Chance: 50.4%

PPM: The above values are assuming we apply a 50% bonus to existing PPMs.

You can use the formula I listed above to figure out how this will impact you. If you're confused how all of this works I am happy to answer questions. My goal here is to enlighten you all on the complex world of procs. Also, I am currently considering having a minimum chance to proc that scales with the enhancements Procs Per Minute if that is possible with the code. We'll have to see.

Regards,
Synapse

 

It doesn't sound like the intent was to reduce the chances of a proc firing.

 

Now I don't plan on ever slotting Call of the Sandman - I tried it once in an AoE sleep and it was complete garbage now with it as good as it will apparently ever be, so I don't really care if it gets nerfed or left alone. But I did check the post because I was curious and I don't see where the part about a downward adjustment was coming from.

[Monos King]

3 minutes ago, Faultline said:

A proc going from, as you said, "pointless" to "turns an AOE power into a strong self heal" is not intended, it is not balanced, and it warrants a nerf.

I think it is wise to shut down purist arguments. It allows us to move into an era where necessary changes can be made for the benefit of everyone.

 

I haven't once made the "well the original devs made it this way, so it should stay this way" argument. I believe that is counter-productive, as things have very much changed. I will, however, cite their intentions when something is labeled a glitch or acceptable to the games balance. Their rulings then still hold relevance. 

 

What I have been mentioning from that era, however, is the effectiveness of certain procs. That they were not deemed a problem then, and in the Homecoming Age of Leniency, most certainly should not be considered one now. Noteworthy in that category is Gaussian's providing pets with Boost Up, and Soulbound shortly providing players with Boost Up.

 

These two procs have had, even to this very moment, no explanation for their change. I am adamant in the belief it was a pointless alteration, and should be reversed. 
 

Sandman's newfound effectiveness contrasts definitely with the puritist attachments to live rules, and you yourself have suggested that there is little intention to stay tethered to them. I agree, that any argument latched to them is invalid. So let's not waste time with the fact that their original intention wasn't to be a strong heal, their original intention sucked.

 

So with that in mind, I think it would help to look at the instances of using Sleep abilities with theft slotted in for reference. Let's look at their base recharge times.

 

Mass Hypnosis: 1 min 30 sec, let's bring it down to 26 factoring in 120% rech enhancements and 137% recharge buffs. Big values.

 

Salt Crystals: Same changes as above, around 26 sec

 

Spore Burst: 13 sec

 

Static Field: 11.5

 

Static Field is a pseudo pet so it doesn't even activate in the way it would with the others, so I won't consider it. Controllers maximum health is 1606.35. 1 Sandman fire would provide 80 health. The highest amount of targets any of these can hit at once is 16. So at most, with these EXTREMELY exaggerated values, a controller will benefit is 1,280, at potentially every 13 seconds.

 

That seems like a lot until you remember a power boosted troll using something like Twilight Grasp heals 946 every 3, 1892 every 6, 2838 every 9. On top of various other buffs, on top of debuffs, on top of the fact that I took almost peak values of benefit from sandman and assuming it hits every target. Speaking in reality, it isn't OP. It's just helpful. So there is no need to change it.

 

In the case of tanks using Salt Crystals, it is effective. I will hand that one over, as a maxed out tank will heal to full health assuming he doesn't miss every 26 seconds. But on the account that tanks survivability is already god tier, this fact makes almost no difference. 

 

So with the knowledge that Sandman isn't OP, isn't complained about by players, and the fact that the original intentions are a total non factor here...why change the proc?

 

Why change any of these?

[siolfir]

7 minutes ago, Faultline said:

Read the post again and take into account that, at the time of posting, the Live server was using percentage chances for procs. PPM was intended to increase proc rate compared to percentage chance, which it did. The rest of the post discusses changes to reduce the effectiveness of PPM, from what was then on the beta server (and what we have now) to new numbers with lower chances. In other words, the initial implementation of PPM was considered too good and was going to get a nerf, but the shutdown happened first. We are still running the version where most procs have 3PPM and can hit 100% of the time.

It talks about increasing the PPM rate on the proc itself while using the power's actual recharge instead of base recharge (which was where the reduction would come from), with the variable amount being how much the PPM rate was increased. It also mentioned clamping on the high and low end, which I thought we already had until you said that you can still get 100% chances on PPM procs. I read it, I just didn't see where it was anything more than a tweak to the formula to account for global recharge which would have an adverse affect on recharge builds that didn't slot for recharge to min/max the formula, but the attempt was an overall increase while pulling in outliers by setting a min and max chance.

[Emperor Cole]

I have to agree. I don't use sandman but I use Gaussian's and many of these changes seem like they just aren't needed. It would be nice to get some explanation on that.

Edited March 15, 2020 by Emperor Cole
Clarification

[Monos King]

11 minutes ago, Faultline said:

A single IO giving 5% health back is fine. A single IO giving 50% health back isn't.

I'm willing to concede on the notion, primarily because it is secondary to my big issue with mastermind related procs. I've already made my point on the matter, if the dev team isn't going to shift the paradigm on IO situational benefit or compatibilities, in spite community preference, I'll let other people make further cases. 

 

I highly doubt, however, that the explanation for Gaussian's and Soulbound will have such a crutch to stand on. And the issue surrounding MM IO viability is a far more prevalent conversation that needs to be addressed anyhow. I'll just wait for @Captain Powerhouse. 

[siolfir]

25 minutes ago, Faultline said:

Okay; clearly you don't grok the math, which is fine, formulas can be deceiving. Look at the example in the post, at the bottom, instead.

 

Stalker's Guile, under the current rules, at 4PPM: 106.7% chance to proc.

 

Under the new rules, at 6PPM: 90% chance if the power is not slotted for recharge and you have no global recharge at all. 86.9% if you slot the power for 95% recharge but have no global recharge at all. 60.8% chance if you slot the power for 95% recharge and have 100% global recharge (so, Hasten and 30% global recharge from other sources).

 

I'm going to stop there because, I hope, by now you see that the new formula was a significant nerf.

 

Since you stated that the changes weren't done (and mentioned that we have what was on beta at that time currently), I expected that the starting point would be where we are now - which uses slotted recharge but not global, and actually wondered why there wasn't any slotting numbers for the "old PPM" example. The formula wasn't deceiving beyond my just skimming over it while looking for clues as to intent and since I expected to see "recharge" I overlooked "base" vs "modified". 

 

So based on the link for what we have now, it looks like we're already at or near the end of the intent of that goal where recharge is included - just not global recharge - with a minimum and maximum clamp instead of the 100% chance based on base recharge only.

Edited March 15, 2020 by siolfir
add link to PPM guide

[rhodox]

3 hours ago, Faultline said:

 A single IO giving 5% health back is fine. A single IO giving 50% health back isn't.

At a 50% heal I'm still not sure it would entice people to take the AOE sleeps, but also in my experience you don't get these kinds of heals, ever. Using it in x8 groups my experience has been generally in the 15-25% range if used on the full group, which is...still not great, but at least occasionally useful.

 

How it worked on live was useless. How it works currently on the servers isn't breaking anything, and opens up a couple options for increasing survivability on controllers and dominators if players feel like gambling every time the power fires, which at least encourages some build diversity. Even if the IO was granting a 50% heal every time Salt Crystals was used, that would mean, best case, a heal equivalent to a couple hits on a squishy, every 27-30 seconds, on a perma-dom dominator, which requires it to proc on TEN targets each time it is fired, using a power largely seen as ineffective in team situations, instead of hitting attacks or hard controls.

 

It could be changed to fire 100% of the time and it would still be utterly pointless with this change, because as it stands, a single 50hp heal is unnoticable. To put it another way, at a 100% proc rate, on a perma-dom dominator using salt crystals immediately every time it refreshes, but with the power only firing once per application, its effective healing over time is slightly better than one-third of a single tick of natural player regeneration, assuming the player has zero powers or IOs that increase regeneration rate whatsoever, and an empty slot in health.

[Obitus]

4 hours ago, Faultline said:

We know where the game was at shutdown, we know where beta was at shutdown, and we know where beta was going at shutdown. And it wasn't going up. We can either finish Synapse's changes and nerf everything, or look at individual IOs that the current implementation made too powerful and adjust those on a case-by-case basis.

 

 

First I want to thank you and the Homecoming team for all of your hard work.  You do it free, and I'm sure there are days when reading complaints on the forums really chaps your hide.

 

I also think it's clear that if the game hadn't died in 2012, further adjustments to the PPM system would likely have happened at some point.  In any MMO, change is an inevitability - and in this case, we're talking about a period of nearly 8 years.  So I don't dispute that part of your argument. 

 

Still, I don't read Synapse as having a stated intention to nerf PPM relative to what we have now on the Homecoming servers.  Yes, in the post you quoted, he talks about a proposed tweak to the system, which includes (among other things) adding global recharge to the formula.  But here are two of his posts from later in the same thread (quoted below the spoiler):

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20120906115457/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showpost.php?p=4215290&postcount=251

https://web.archive.org/web/20120906120102/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showpost.php?p=4215484&postcount=286

 

Spoiler

Quote

Some very good points have been brought up regarding outside buffs to your recharge affecting your proc chances. While we have considered this, after really taking a look at how this affects a great deal a power, the original proposed changes might be too punitive considering this. I'm going to take a look at some options and I'll get back to you all (hopefully later today.)

 

TL;DR: I'd like to make the formula less punitive for players with global recharge bonuses and for powers with large area factors.

Synapse

 

Quote

Okay, here's what I've come up with. The differences are FAR less dramatic than my first proposal:

 

1) Increase the PPM value by 20-25% (So a 4 PPM proc would become 5ish PPM) NOTE: The exact amount is still being figured out.
2) Replace the Base Recharge used by the PPM formula to only take into recharge enhancements affecting that power. This means recharge boosts from powers like Speed Boost, Hasten, Chrono Shift and Global Recharge from Enhancement effects like Luck of the Gambler's: +Def/+Global Rech 7.5% are not factored in.
3) Procs will have a maximum chance to trigger. I'm leaning toward 90-95%. There will be a minimum chance to proc equal to 5 plus 1.5 per PPM. Only the most extreme instances of very low recharge, cast time and area factor will cause this to occur.
4) All non-PPM enhancements with a chance to trigger less than 100% will use PPMs. (Note: Enhancements like Numina's Convalesence: Regen/Recovery will not be affected by this change as they have 100% chance to trigger).
5) The formula will treat Area Factor differently. Instead of simply using the flat Area Factor of the power, it will use 1 plus 75% of the difference between 1 and its actual AF. I think I heard a couple of you say "Huh?" Let me give you an example and then explain why.

Let's take a look at Dark Regeneration shall we? It has an Area Factor of 4, base recharge of 30 seconds and cast time of 1.17s. Using current PPMs with Essence Theft (3PPMs) it has a 39% chance to proc per target.

With the new formula we'll treat area factor as being slightly smaller than it is now. So the new formula would treat this Area Factor as 3.25. (1+(.75*(Actual Area Factor-1)). The simple version is: Area Factor will have a smaller impact on proc chance reduction.

Okay, now onto the example. Let's use Assassin's Strike slotted with Stalker's Guile: +Rech/Chance to Hide (Standard):

[snipped example for brevity]

Now the why...

As many of you have mentioned it seems odd to penalize players' proc chances for strengthening their builds with global recharge. So, only recharge modification from enhancements and enhancement-like effects (like Alpha Slot effects) will modify proc chance. We also realized, after looking at a great number of affected powers, that we were over penalizing AoE powers with PPMs. So, we've lightened the impact Area Factor has on the formula.

Thanks for all the great feedback and really making me look for creative, but appropriate ways to solve this problem.

Thoughts?

Synapse

 

 

As far as I can tell, that last Synapse post contains the PPM formula as we have it on Homecoming, today.  And as far as I can tell, the system as we know it was in fact his final intention.

 

Again, I won't argue that the game should proceed on a strict "originalist" basis - with the idea that the game's balance as of i25 is sacrosanct and must never change.  If you guys feel that the game warrants a change, then so be it.  I just wanted to contextualize your implication that Synapse intended to nerf the PPM system (as we know it) into the ground in 2012, because that doesn't seem to be the case.  Specifically with regard to global recharge affecting proc rates, that notion may have been quickly considered, but it was explicitly and forcefully discarded not too long afterwards. 

 

(In fact, the time stamps say that Synapse reversed himself a mere three hours after he wrote the post that you quoted.)

 

For my own part, I feel that the PPM proc system (again, as we know it) does way more good than harm, because it adds trade offs to character building that weren't present before; it adds a new tension between offense and defense.  I won't go into a long screed about that here, because I already wrote one in a different thread.

Edited March 15, 2020 by Obitus
added a quote for context

[macskull]

7 hours ago, Faultline said:

If you want to use the "purist argument", then every single proc in the game should no longer use PPM and go back to a percentage chance per target.

I for one would be completely okay with this, it makes the proc system easy to understand again and eliminates further balancing of individual procs or powers based on their interactions with each other. It's worth pointing out though that per the post above mine it's pretty clear the current way PPM works is the way Synapse "intended" it.

 

EDIT: Re: Call of the Sandman in an AoE - there are a few problems here. It seems like players' chief complaint is that if you nerf this proc it once again makes AoE sleep powers useless in most use cases and the proc is the only thing making those powers worth taking. Instead of changing how the proc has worked for the last 7 years maybe it's time to reevaluate AoE sleep powers (and sleep in general) first and look at procs later.

Edited March 15, 2020 by macskull

[Bopper]

For everyone, it is worth reading the entirety of that thread (there are more than 20 pages of comments, but still good to read the history of these changes being discussed). As @Faultline mentioned in the above post, what he linked to was Synapse's initial proposal, which was using a power's total recharge (BaseRch/(1 + Enhance+Global). He also suggested the PPM of the procs at the time would get a 50% increase.

 

This was all said in April, before i24 beta happened. It was theorycraft at the time. Read through the rest of the thread and you'll see adjustments being made, where folks argued global recharge would negatively impact builds, because they can't predict performance if a Kin blasts them with speed boost. A minimum proc chance was later defined to incorporate the value of the PPM in its formula. 

 

Basically, what made it to Beta was the compromises made and discussed in that thread (later on). We use enhanced recharge instead of global, Area Factor got dampened by 0.75x, and the PPMs never increased by 50% (some might have increased slightly, but they're in the minority).

 

So long story longer, the PPM system we're using now is what was intended by Synapse in the sense he designed what went into the i24 Beta (which I think was August of that year, right before shutdown). Either way, he intended to change how Proc mechanics worked. However, the system never escaped Beta due to the shutdown, so it is very likely the PPM system we have now would not have been the one that would've went live in i24, as I'm sure many iterative tweaks would have been done during Beta (like we see now).

 

So here are the formulas from that day in April 2012 versus what was on Beta later in August 2012:

 

April 2012

Prob = (1.5*PPM) * [Cast + BaseRch/(1 + Enhance + Global)] / 60 / [1 + Rad*(11*Arc+540)/30000]

 

Aug 2012

Prob = (PPM) * [Cast + BaseRch/(1 + Enhance)] / 60 / [1 + 0.75*Rad*(11*Arc+540)/30000]

 

 

Edited March 15, 2020 by Bopper

[Jimmy]

42 minutes ago, macskull said:

EDIT: Re: Call of the Sandman in an AoE - there are a few problems here. It seems like players' chief complaint is that if you nerf this proc it once again makes AoE sleep powers useless in most use cases and the proc is the only thing making those powers worth taking. Instead of changing how the proc has worked for the last 7 years maybe it's time to reevaluate AoE sleep powers (and sleep in general) first and look at procs later.

That's the crux of it. Sleep powers are crowd control powers, they shouldn't be validated by a single (arguably broken) heal proc. The discussion should really be about why sleep powers aren't good right now 🙂

[Gorgar]

Sleep powers are pretty good unless you're on a steamrolling team.  They're great for handling ambushes, for instance. 

[Parabola]

1 hour ago, Bopper said:

So long story longer, the PPM system we're using now is what was intended by Synapse in the sense he designed what went into the i24 Beta (which I think was August of that year, right before shutdown). Either way, he intended to change how Proc mechanics worked. However, the system never escaped Beta due to the shutdown, so it is very likely the PPM system we have now would not have been the one that would've went live in i24, as I'm sure many iterative tweaks would have been done during Beta (like we see now).

Worth highlighting this point. The game at the point of shutdown was still a game in development, and not just the things that were still in beta at that point. Continuous development and re-balancing are part of what make MMO's what they are. CoH is a very complicated ecosystem with many layers of systems interacting in all sorts of ways. No implementation of anything is ever going to be so perfectly balanced out of the gate that it won't require tweaking at a later date and even if something was perfect on it's own merits another change elsewhere in the system would eventually interact with it and create the need for changes. And honestly would we want it any other way? I don't remember the old forums being full of posts saying 'Ok devs, with I23 the game is perfect, take a permanent holiday and leave it well alone'.

[rhodox]

56 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

That's the crux of it. Sleep powers are crowd control powers, they shouldn't be validated by a single (arguably broken) heal proc. The discussion should really be about why sleep powers aren't good right now 🙂

They're not really validated, it just gives you a reason to maybe consider them if you have the room when before they were gimmick picks at best. Sandman in controller sleeps doesn't make them GOOD, it just makes them kind of interesting in that you can, if RNG likes you, use them in a different way. Getting double duty out of a power like this is a good thing! Giving new life to 'bad' powers by letting the players use them in new and unusual ways should be the exact sort of thing the IO system should be encouraging more, not less.

 

Any time you can expand player options in interesting (not mandatory) ways you create more variety which I would think would be healthier for the game overall. The proc didn't by any means make the sleep control powers must-takes (far from it) but it at least made them maybe-takes because it gave you a somewhat-effective new way to use them. I'd honestly like to see more procs that provide those sorts of alternate-use options, like force feedback, gravitational anchor (giving a hold to an aoe immob is a game-changer), or overwhelming force in some builds do now, right now they're few and far between.

 

[Kal5]

•  

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•  Return pet proc to Gaussian's when placed into a pet with +to hit

These last two were changes recently added to the beta server, and they really need to be reverted as quickly as possible. Mastermind IO advantage was hyper low before, and this change removes a cherished, long recognized benefit to powers that thug users have benefitted from for ages. Enforcers gaining the boost up proc was considered integral and removing it without warning or request was truly silly. This one NEEDs to come back.

 

Additionally, even more IO proc changes were dispensed that were wholly unecessary, and I will address both those and changes that should NOT occur.

 

I have to strongly agree with this.

Pet slotting already has limited options, and masterminds are not an overpowered AT.
Hold procs work on hold pets. Accurate to hit debuff procs work on pets that give accurate to hit.
Why would a pet that gives +to hit not benefit from a +to hit proc?

"Not intended" frankly, that debatable. It has worked for nearly a year now on HC, it's not buggy, people enjoy it, it's a reasonable buff, it's fun, and provides creative slotting opportunities for replayability.

After months and months of excitedly telling and advising players about how gaussian works in enforcers, I now can't actually make use of it myself. It's very disappointing.
 

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As for heal procs, would it be possible to have one set with a very small heal % that can multi proc on AoEs, and a different heal proc with a large % heal that has a cap 1 one?
 

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Procs are a part of CoH that I really love. They are interesting, make powers work in creative ways, give new options and life to sets that need help, add to replay value, and are exciting when they trigger.

Reducing the options for their use is a negative to the game overall - if it is not totally overpowering or game breaking.

 

Quote

 The discussion should really be about why sleep powers aren't good right now 🙂

There will always be an underpowered sets and powers. Procs give players an opportunity to find new uses for them creatively.

Please make any adjustments to procs with a light hand, and avoid eliminating already existing uses for them. 
Thank you.

[macskull]

2 hours ago, Jimmy said:

That's the crux of it. Sleep powers are crowd control powers, they shouldn't be validated by a single (arguably broken) heal proc. The discussion should really be about why sleep powers aren't good right now 🙂

So why not take a look at the sleep mechanic, and leave the proc alone until there's meaningful reason to take a sleep power other than this interaction? What's going to end up happening here is AoE sleep powers will once again become relatively useless until at some point in the future they're looked at, if that ever happens, because I'd bet it wasn't even something being considered. Changes to the Call of the Sandman proc right now just mean some powers become pretty much useless again where at least now they have some utility.

 

Honestly, I'm all for going back to the pre-PPM system if only because PPM is leading to several weird interactions which end up causing nerfs simply because of an interaction with a specific type of power. I'm still not entirely sure what problem PPM was supposed to fix but it seems like it's caused more problems than it solved (assuming you see proc interactions as an imbalance, and I don't).

 

That being said... if we are really going to neuter the Call of the Sandman proc like this, it should honestly be a higher % heal and be unique. Make it, say 20% heal unaffected by enhancements and buffs, make the proc a unique IO, and possibly adjust the 6th slot set bonus to account for it. This makes the proc actually useful in single-target sleeps while not completely neutering its performance in AoE sleeps, and since it's unique you don't have to worry about people multi-slotting it to chain heal themselves.

 

Just to be clear, I'm not against this change because it affects me personally (I generally skip sleep powers and don't think I've ever slotted the CotS proc) but because nerfing a proc because of a specific interaction between that proc and some powers seems like bad design.

Edited March 15, 2020 by macskull

[Jimmy]

25 minutes ago, macskull said:

What's going to end up happening here is AoE sleep powers will once again become relatively useless until at some point in the future they're looked at, if that ever happens, because I'd bet it wasn't even something being considered.

Then you'd lose that bet 🙂

 

Sleep is something we want to look at, but as you're well aware by now, time is limited. And also as you know by now, don't take this as a confirmation that Sleep will receive any changes as we may not find a solution we're happy with.

 

Back on topic - Procs that impact yourself were never meant to stack with additional targets. This was only not the case with +heal/+end procs because the tech for it simply didn't exist when they were made (you could not prevent a heal from "stacking" like you could with other buffs). The tech now does exist, so this proc should follow the same rule, because as it stands it was downright broken under certain circumstances.

 

Does this mean the proc is now under-tuned? Possibly. Does this mean we'll never look at it again? Definitely not.

[Blackfeather]

Partially inspired by the whole Sleep status effect talk, partially something I've been thinking about for a while. Happy to route that sort of discussion here!