Change +Max Health into Absorb (and add more Absorb powers)

[Naraka]

1 hour ago, AgentForest said:

Not exactly.  To dull pain is to blunt it.  To shrug it off.  You are essentially numbing yourself to a blow.  If a portion of that blow just didn't happen, that's an absorb.  You aren't increasing your health.  You're just ignoring the pain of a hit.

 

1 hour ago, AgentForest said:

You use the absorb to soak up the hits, and the regeneration tops you off while the shield buys you time to regenerate.

 

See the 2nd quote.  That's not "numbing" the pain, that's "soaking up" the pain.

 

Current Dull Pain does exactly that: blunt the pain because now you have a higher threshold of pain (i.e. more HP).  You might say dulling pain isn't giving yourself more HP but I'd argue that HP is literally how much pain you can withstand before falling over dead/unconscious so having more means pain will affect you less just like a Tanker capable of withstanding more pain than a Dominator.

[AgentForest]

3 minutes ago, Naraka said:

You might say dulling pain isn't giving yourself more HP but I'd argue that HP is literally how much pain you can withstand before falling over dead/unconscious so having more means pain will affect you less just like a Tanker capable of withstanding more pain than a Dominator.

HP is the amount of DAMAGE one can sustain, not the amount of PAIN one can sustain.  Having more HP would mean it takes more hits to break your arm.  More intense heat to cause burns to your skin.  A bullet still hits you, but doesn't quite penetrate to vital organs.  If a passive ability increases your max HP, fine.  I have no issue with that.  You are just inherently more durable than other characters.  But that shouldn't really be fluid throughout a fight.  It doesn't make sense.

But pain is more mental than physical.  It has to do with perception of damage, not damage itself.  You can't literally take more damage without dying just because your pain response is dulled.  You can just ignore more of that damage, but will still succumb to the same injuries.  Sort of like illusory damage from Spectral Wounds, but backwards.  The very concept should be temporary and not "real" hitpoints.  Otherwise it isn't dulled pain, but bonus durability.  If I give someone morphine to dull their pain response, a gunshot will still go through them just the same.  They just won't notice right away.  This is why absorb is ideal for such a mechanic.

Obviously, the best mechanic for "Dull Pain" isn't in CoH at all, which would be to stagger any damage received over time instead of lump sum.  Get hit with a 100 damage attack, but only take 50 damage, while the remaining 50 comes in over the next 10 seconds, buying time for regen and healing to take effect.  But that's another debate entirely.  That would be truly reversing the "illusionary damage" idea and would be thematically most accurate.  But working that into the game would pretty much require a ground-up rework of any sets that have Dull Pain powers.  Too much work, and it would only anger the purists.

[Naraka]

Heh, this is actually a pretty funny reply because everything you're saying strengthens the concept of Dull Pain being +HPMax.

 

14 minutes ago, AgentForest said:

HP is the amount of DAMAGE one can sustain, not the amount of PAIN one can sustain.  Having more HP would mean it takes more hits to break your arm.  More intense heat to cause burns to your skin.  A bullet still hits you, but doesn't quite penetrate to vital organs.  If a passive ability increases your max HP, fine.  I have no issue with that.  You are just inherently more durable than other characters.  But that shouldn't really be fluid throughout a fight.  It doesn't make sense.

 

The word pain was used here because it's in the name of the power.  Conceptually, pain and damage are synonymous.  Having more HP doesn't mean it takes more "effect" to break your arm.  A Tanker with Super Reflexes will get their arm broken all the same as Tanker with Invulnerability if they have the same HP values.  The difference you are talking about is *resistance*.

 

More heat isn't required to cause a burn, only that the fire that caused it can ignite.  The difference you're talking about would be insulation or heat *resistance* which would then define the severity of the burn.  Whether a bullet hits, grazes, penetrates vital organs is a combination of defense, accuracy and resistance.

 

Anyone whose dealt with pain, injury and threatening situations can tell you that pain responses do indeed fluctuate and isn't always a constant.  Going through SERE training gives you the background to compose yourself while undergoing harsh conditions.  It's a switch.  It's not always on.

 

26 minutes ago, AgentForest said:

But pain is more mental than physical.  It has to do with perception of damage, not damage itself.  You can't literally take more damage without dying just because your pain response is dulled.  You can just ignore more of that damage, but will still succumb to the same injuries.  Sort of like illusory damage from Spectral Wounds, but backwards.  The very concept should be temporary and not "real" hitpoints.  Otherwise it isn't dulled pain, but bonus durability.  If I give someone morphine to dull their pain response, a gunshot will still go through them just the same.  They just won't notice right away.  This is why absorb is ideal for such a mechanic.

 

Like I said above, in a realm where someone can incapacitate an opponent with their mind or by ripping out a part of their soul, pain and damage are synonymous.

 

And why can't my characters take more damage without dying by dulling their pain responses?  That is literally a super power and explanation of what some revive powers do.

 

And just ignoring more of the damage but will still succumb to the same injuries?  Sounds exactly like Dull Pain when that "morphine" effect starts to wear off.

 

30 minutes ago, AgentForest said:

Get hit with a 100 damage attack, but only take 50 damage, while the remaining 50 comes in over the next 10 seconds, buying time for regen and healing to take effect.  

 

You literally just described Dull Pain.

 

Instead of concocting a new mechanic of delayed damage application, having that 100 damage attack "dealt with" over a larger HP pool accomplishes the same thing.

 

Conceptual-wise, you don't suddenly take 50 damage by dulling your pain and then 50 damage later, you take it all...it just hurts less because you can withstand more pain (i.e. damage) than usual.

 

And you still haven't made a cohesive argument why +absorb, which is conceptually described as a *barrier* of material or energy makes sense at all for someone concentrating their mind and body to not fall over from taking too many hits.  I repeat: +absorb is a BARRIER.

 

The funny part, though, is all you had to do is concede to my point...and then turn around and point to Hoarfrost and Earth's Embrace instead.  I have no idea why you kept going though lol

 

[Joshex]

On 3/25/2020 at 4:53 AM, AgentForest said:

You use the absorb to soak up the hits, and the regeneration tops you off while the shield buys you time to regenerate.

It's not a hard concept to understand.  Many MMOs have healer specs that utilize this combo of regen or heal-over-time effects with barriers to buy them time to work their magic.  One of the reasons people like +HP is because it increases base regen, which is why I suggest giving absorb effects a regen bonus.  Not because the BARRIER can regen, but because your health bar could still use the help while the shield protects you, lol.  Also, the regen effect would have a duration, like all regen buffs.  It wouldn't just "disappear" because the barrier's gone.  The barrier has a max duration, sure, but it also has a health.  Just because you killed the shield doesn't mean the regen has to stop.  Just like how waking someone up from Salt Crystals still leaves the defense debuff in effect.

Your argument that the devs clearly wanted +HP to exist separate from Absorb mechanics despite switching mostly to absorb for new powers once they'd managed to make it work in the game's engine is akin to saying: "The devs clearly didn't want Hero ATs to have passives.  Villains got them, and if they wanted heroes to have them, it would have been in from the start.  They could have done it.  Therefore, any old ATs should not have passives."  It just doesn't work as an argument as far as I can tell.  They hadn't originally planned on it, but felt it was only fair that older content get the same dynamic, fun overhaul that newer content got.  The engine didn't allow for adding a separate absorb HP bar originally.  So they used the workaround of just adding to your HP pool instead.  Minor differences (like being able to heal the new HP, and affecting base regen), but ultimately it got the job done without needing to dramatically revamp the game engine.  Later, they found a way to make absorb shields work.  The game was shut down so fast after those powers came out that there was no time to ever see how well-received it was and build it into other older sets.  But my guess is, much like with hero ATs getting passives, it was only a matter of time.

Anyway, it seems you're getting really heated over just a friendly conversation about possible mechanical tweaks, so maybe you aren't the person to talk about this stuff with.  I'll keep that in mind in the future.  Have a good night, everyone.

if you have 2000 HP and use a click power that:  applies 1000 Absorb, for 3 minutes with a regen boost lets say a total of 90 points per second

 

you need to be damaged 1000 points before regen can do anything. after you are damaged 1001 points you regen 1 point. if your HP falls 500 points below HP cap,  every tick for the remainder of the power you'd receive 90 HP from regen as per our example until you get to 2000. then again it'd stop.

 

the only way for Absorb and regen to both be active at the same time is if you activate the absorb power when you have less than max health and thus have absorb with regen filling up below that.

 

Otherwise the way this works is if you want to get the absorb back, you'd have to activate a power that applies additional absorb beyond what you lost already..

 

Keep in mind in this case lets say invul, if +1200 HP and regen was changed to +1200 Absorb and regen heres the difference:

for this illustration HP will be 2000.

You take damage <= 1200:

+HP: regen tries to refill the damage back up to the new HP cap (3200) granted by the power.

Absorb: nothing happens.

 

You take damage >= 1200:

+HP: regen will try to fill your HP bar upto HP + 1200 (3200).

Absorb: regen will try to fill your HP bar tot he normal HP cap (2000)

 

in the case of ">=1200" with absorb, for the remainder of the active time of the click power, you now have less HP... resulting in an easier ability to be killed regardless the regen. you'd need maybe and extra 50%+ regen to attempt to try to make up for it and even then.. 2000 HP.. it can be one shot by a good hit from an AV. this was the reason that invul adds that extra 1200. in the event you get hit hard, you have additional HP you can regen from and to for a short amount of time. if you can heal it while the click power is active, then it continues to provide an extra buffer against attacks. Absorb doesn't once it's gone it's gone. no take-backs.

[Galaxy Brain]

This is a whole lot of semantics. End of the day, Damage is Damage and Health is Health in-game.

On 3/25/2020 at 3:24 AM, Naraka said:

 

You literally just described Dull Pain.

 

Instead of concocting a new mechanic of delayed damage application, having that 100 damage attack "dealt with" over a larger HP pool accomplishes the same thing.

 

Conceptual-wise, you don't suddenly take 50 damage by dulling your pain and then 50 damage later, you take it all...it just hurts less because you can withstand more pain (i.e. damage) than usual.

There are mechanical differences between actually splitting up damage and just having more HP though. Yes, they do accomplish the same thing of "it takes longer / more attacks for me to be defeated", which can also be applied to More HP and More Defense, or more resistance, or even more offensive power / mez effects to stop incoming hits. The difference is in the details of how this is accomplished and how it directly effects incoming damage:

 

Lets say you have 1000 hp base, and are going to take 500 damage at once. 

 

We have the option of applying a 50% HP boost, or a 50% "Damage Delay" over X seconds.

 

50% HP Boost:

• 1000 hp -> 1500 hp
• 1500 - 500 = 1000 left, or 33% damage dealt down from 50% damage you would have taken.
• You have reduced the incoming damage by about 17% by applying 50% more health in this scenario
• The damage was done instantly, leaving you with 67% of your health left to work with.
• Further hits will hurt just as much, but you have more hp to soak it than you did before

50% Damage Delay: 

• 500 damage -> 250 damage right now, and 250 damage later at some point, some how
• 1000 - 250 = 750 left, or 25% damage dealt down from the 50% you would have taken.
• You have reduced the incoming damage by about 25% 
• There is still more damage incoming in some way, but you have a bigger % of your HP left at the moment right now and have time to react to that.
• Worst case scenario is that the remaining 250 damage comes in full X seconds later, in the moment you still mitigating the 500 more effectively and you have bought time to deal with the threat or patch the damage via natural regeneration. Depending on the timing of the delay, and how it is parsed this could have huge implications to how you actually mitigate your damage over time

 

More HP is always good, but it doesn't actually mitigate the incoming damage. A Damage Delay mechanic scales with the incoming hits which makes it more variable, but vs big hits it becomes more valuable than just more raw HP in terms of immediate defense and how it can layer with other mechanics or actions.

 

 

On 3/25/2020 at 3:24 AM, Naraka said:

And you still haven't made a cohesive argument why +absorb, which is conceptually described as a *barrier* of material or energy makes sense at all for someone concentrating their mind and body

to not fall over from taking too many hits.  I repeat: +absorb is a BARRIER.

 

 

Mind over Matter? The Absorb Layer is the mechanical representation of your boosted willpower to "Ignore damage" until you've hit your limit. Don't underestimate the power of imagination 😉

[Naraka]

6 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

This is a whole lot of semantics. End of the day, Damage is Damage and Health is Health in-game.

There are mechanical differences between actually splitting up damage and just having more HP though. Yes, they do accomplish the same thing of "it takes longer / more attacks for me to be defeated", which can also be applied to More HP and More Defense, or more resistance, or even more offensive power / mez effects to stop incoming hits. The difference is in the details of how this is accomplished and how it directly effects incoming damage:

My arguments were solely about concept though. Not really talking about the mechanical effectiveness or uniqueness.  I realize they are different but if I were making a comparison, that difference is likely not so drastic to push for a change just to fit it into the set.

 

6 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Lets say you have 1000 hp base, and are going to take 500 damage at once. 

 

We have the option of applying a 50% HP boost, or a 50% "Damage Delay" over X seconds.

 

50% HP Boost:

• 1000 hp -> 1500 hp
• 1500 - 500 = 1000 left, or 33% damage dealt down from 50% damage you would have taken.
• You have reduced the incoming damage by about 17% by applying 50% more health in this scenario
• The damage was done instantly, leaving you with 67% of your health left to work with.
• Further hits will hurt just as much, but you have more hp to soak it than you did before

50% Damage Delay: 

• 500 damage -> 250 damage right now, and 250 damage later at some point, some how
• 1000 - 250 = 750 left, or 25% damage dealt down from the 50% you would have taken.
• You have reduced the incoming damage by about 25% 
• There is still more damage incoming in some way, but you have a bigger % of your HP left at the moment right now and have time to react to that.
• Worst case scenario is that the remaining 250 damage comes in full X seconds later, in the moment you still mitigating the 500 more effectively and you have bought time to deal with the threat or patch the damage via natural regeneration. Depending on the timing of the delay, and how it is parsed this could have huge implications to how you actually mitigate your damage over time

 

Again, the differences seem minute.  You say you have "more time to react" but in reality, that's not true.  You have exactly the same amount of time to react..in fact, you have a better chance to gauge what you need to do in the 1st scenario unless you have a giant indicator on screen telling you when the rest of the damage is incoming in the 2nd scenario.  The same goes for allies that have support being able to react without putting a giant indicator in their face as well.

 

Overall, it's not that much different.  It'd be an interesting mechanic to add into the game, but unnecessary to change an existing power unless said power needed help.

 

6 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

More HP is always good, but it doesn't actually mitigate the incoming damage. A Damage Delay mechanic scales with the incoming hits which makes it more variable, but vs big hits it becomes more valuable than just more raw HP in terms of immediate defense and how it can layer with other mechanics or actions.

 

 

 

 

Mind over Matter? The Absorb Layer is the mechanical representation of your boosted willpower to "Ignore damage" until you've hit your limit. Don't underestimate the power of imagination 😉

 

As has been explained already, +HPMax acts basically like resistance so it, in fact, does mitigate incoming damage.  It just has additional effects compared to straight resistance like not caring about damage typing and improving regenerated HP/sec.  It also synergizes with other sets that straight heal or increase regen.

 

As for the imagination part, I've went over it.  Over and over.  +HPMax *does* make sense to dull your pain.  +Absorb, of course you can imagine up some concept that forces it to fit, but that doesn't make +HPMax suddenly *not* fit for this power.

 

And you didn't reply to my previous point.  If replacing these +HPMax powers with +Absorb powers, wouldn't we then have fewer +HPMax powers than +Absorb especially considering the propensity to add +absorb to new powers/sets?  Are we trying to just phase out +HPMax and leave it to IO set bonuses?  Wouldn't that make sets all the more similar if we did that?

[Galaxy Brain]

On 3/26/2020 at 11:59 PM, Naraka said:

Again, the differences seem minute.  You say you have "more time to react" but in reality, that's not true.  You have exactly the same amount of time to react..in fact, you have a better chance to gauge what you need to do in the 1st scenario unless you have a giant indicator on screen telling you when the rest of the damage is incoming in the 2nd scenario.  The same goes for allies that have support being able to react without putting a giant indicator in their face as well.

This highly, highly depends on the context of how the "Delay" works, as well as the incoming damage. The bigger the incoming hit, the better the "Delay" becomes as you will mitigate more and more immediately. The more incoming hits, the longer you have to deal with the damage as well as it gets continuously spread out into smaller hits instead of taking big instant ones. That 1 tick between hits can mean the difference between life and death if it gives you a small window to self heal or even just regenerate.

 

In this hypothetical, we can only assume that +MaxHP follows the same rules we see now where it has a finite limit to how high it can go while anything that directly negates incoming damage in some way can essentially infinitely scale upwards based on what's coming in. So in a vacuum, being able to split up damage over time will have a bit more value if given the choice. Though this would be incredibly reliant on how it works. Split 50/50 with 1 half now and the other in 5 seconds =/= Split 10 ways with 10% per second =/= take 50% right now, then 5 chunks of 10% over the next 10 seconds, etc. You are right that it may not give you immediate reaction benefit in a realistic sense, but over the course of a combat if any such rule applied to all attacks it would.

 

Quote

Overall, it's not that much different.  It'd be an interesting mechanic to add into the game, but unnecessary to change an existing power unless said power needed help.

It'd definitely be an interesting tool to stack upon others, and I think this would be a far better tool than (funny enough) Dull Pain in Regeneration specifically. DP as is "works" in Regen for the reasons mentioned prior, but the set as a whole has a real hard time mitigating big hits, even with more HP. A damage delay mechanic in this set will probably be a huge help given how chunking out the damage gives its Regen time to actually kick in and actively fight the damage mid-combat. Granted, this would highly depend on how the damage is delayed, with smaller chunks over a longer period being ideal. 

 

Assume you are going to take 4 bigs hits on a /Regen with 3 seconds between each hit. This is a total time frame of 9 seconds, so you get = (HP/S) * 9

[Ignoring time after the last hit taken as we can assume combat ends after that and you have infinite time to rest]

 

Dull Pain when slotted gives you a ~59% HP boost while active, which will boost you to = (HP/S * 1.59) * 9

 

For a Delay mechanic on /Regen to match this, we simply need to look at it this way = (HP/S) * (9 * 1.59)

 

Instead of boosting the Health returned per interval, you're increasing the intervals where you can return health. Given that the time frame of combat has not changed (9 sec), if you are able to deal with the situation within the combat window and take less damage within it, you're in a great spot.

 

As for the question of if Regen needs something like this instead of a DP-like power? That can be debated depending on how that would work. Something that say, chunks all damage you receive into 10% bites over 10 second durations would be much, much stronger than DP though that is a reach. Ideally, like with how +HP is essentially "+Resist vs all Damage", they would work together and not be an either-or choice in some form. Just because we get +HP in Regen doesn't mean you also don't get +15% res to all with Resilience, which is effectively +15% HP for 99.99% of the encounters in game. Stack those together and it's stronger than sum of their parts!

 

On 3/26/2020 at 11:59 PM, Naraka said:

As has been explained already, +HPMax acts basically like resistance so it, in fact, does mitigate incoming damage.  It just has additional effects compared to straight resistance like not caring about damage typing and improving regenerated HP/sec.  It also synergizes with other sets that straight heal or increase regen.

It does... and it doesn't. Like I mentioned above, 15% Resistance to all damage can effectively be seen as 15% more HP, and vice versa. However the bigger the incoming damage numbers, the more work +Resist does comparatively (though there are practical limits here for both and the only time this really comes into play is in a situation where you would have been pretty much one-shot). 

 

Quote

 

As for the imagination part, I've went over it.  Over and over.  +HPMax *does* make sense to dull your pain.  +Absorb, of course you can imagine up some concept that forces it to fit, but that doesn't make +HPMax suddenly *not* fit for this power.

Likewise, it doesn't make +Absorb not fit the power thematically either. Granted, I think the point of that has long sailed off as +HP in the current CoH meta has far more practical weight than +Absorb does so any Self +HP powers should stay +HP. Frostwork on the other hand may have a case to be +Absorb as it can stack upon other characters regardless of how much +HP they have and provide more potent mitigation.

 

Quote

 

And you didn't reply to my previous point.  If replacing these +HPMax powers with +Absorb powers, wouldn't we then have fewer +HPMax powers than +Absorb especially considering the propensity to add +absorb to new powers/sets?  Are we trying to just phase out +HPMax and leave it to IO set bonuses?  Wouldn't that make sets all the more similar if we did that?

I agree completely. Absorb has a place, as does +HP, and like with +Resist those places are stacked together to become stronger multiplicatively 😄

 

In theory, they could have done a lot more with +Absorb if given time to flesh it out as a mechanic. If that were the case, I could see it being used more often or even replacing certain +HP powers depending on the whole toolkit and how it'd interact. As it is right now though, it is in a good spot as it stacks with everything else.

 

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by Galaxy Brain