It's time to recognize Domination is bad.

[SwitchFade]

2 hours ago, Infinitum said:

What's a Dominator?  😄

It's the thing you put your iced cream in.

[XaoGarrent]

4 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I take responsibility for that dark melee change. That was more an issue for how the power works and scaled being inheritley a disaster to leverage.

 

As for Domination, let's step away from changing that power itself then and look towards making it work more...

 

Change or add a Dominator ATO that specifically adds duration to Domination, or reduces Domination recharge significantly. 

 

Add +rech to the self buffs you get in Dom secondaries. 

 

Etc

You're good at crunching numbers and you seem to know the game well inside out, but you need to work on your common sense and situational awareness. Everything you say is true. Everything you say also is very unlikely to happen the way it should.

 

Think twice, think real hard about what is likely to be reality versus what is your vision, and be very, very careful what you ask for. You might not be supporting a nerf explicitly, but you are implicitly, even if you don't realize you are. Context is always important, and in context you're playing with fire.

 

With the record on balance and design that the Homecoming devs have, especially the ease at which the reactionary community talks them out of improvements pretty much every time they come up with something good, the way this will pan out ultimately is that we'll get domination nerfs and at most an extremely irrelevant buff. No +recharge, no fancy ATOs, none of the many, many little but specific buffs that would polish out the comparatively large amount of rust in this AT's design. Frankly, if they go messing around with Domination, Dominators are going to need a lot more than some ATOs and a couple buffs to specific powers.

 

Just look at what they're doing over on Thunderspy for instance, that's way, way more ambitious and it's not even coming as a trade. That's because over there they did something that all the wizards and reactionary vets over here refuse to do: They admitted to themselves basic reality. Dominators ain't really that great. Especially without permadom.

 

These sorts of changes keep up long enough, and eventually people are going to start considering greener pastures. People have options now.

[kenlon]

34 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Can often be bigger than you'd think.

Okay, you're skipping the actual question I was asking. Is the loss in damage linear based on the amount of recharge you are short or not?

 

34 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Tar patch was the way it was since the very beginning of the game's lifespan. I'm pretty sure it didn't need to be 'fixed', and even granting that it was unintended and simply let alone due to deadlines, I figure it should be left alone just by virtue of it being that way since the dawn of time.

The Tar Patch fix was due to them changing the backend of the game so that powers can spawn other powers directly, allowing them to have them use the proper AT modifiers directly instead of needing to make a whole pile of pseudopets for different ATs. See this for confirmation:

Having ATs actually use their AT modifiers, and then balancing the sets if needed from there is far better than keeping things buggy and less maintainable to preserve bugs that some players like. 

 

We'll have to agree to disagree over the Rage -Def crash fix, because I've not found it to be crippling, though it is something I have to pay attention to.

 

15 minutes ago, XaoGarrent said:

With the record on balance and design that the Homecoming devs have, especially the ease at which the reactionary community talks them out of improvements pretty much every time they come up with something good,

Tanker changes. 

Mastermind AI. 

Asymmetrical Costume Editor changes. 

Origin power pools.

Combat log fixes so it's actually consistent.

Electrical Affinity.

New, and useful, IO sets.

Addressed inflation *before* the economy gets broken.

 

I'm not sure what changes they didn't implement that you're unhappy about, but they've done an excellent job. These are just the things that I could think off off the top of my head, because they've affected my play. Thunderspy, from what I've seen in patch notes, has a much more devil-may-care attitude towards radically altering the game. I'm perfectly happen with them being out there, but I wouldn't want to play there.

Edited April 17, 2020 by kenlon

[ScarySai]

9 minutes ago, kenlon said:

Is the loss in damage linear based on the amount of recharge you are short or not?

It depends. For a set like DB it can be pretty big, for others it can be proportionally smaller.

9 minutes ago, kenlon said:

The Tar Patch fix was due to them...

I remember the rationalizations well, thank you.

9 minutes ago, kenlon said:

Having ATs actually use their AT modifiers, and then balancing the sets if needed from there is far better than keeping things buggy

And this argument is still as weak as I remember. It's a nerf at the end of the day, and an unnecessary one at that.

 

23 minutes ago, XaoGarrent said:

Just look at what they're doing over on Thunderspy for instance, that's way, way more ambitious and it's not even coming as a trade. That's because over there they did something that all the wizards and reactionary vets over here refuse to do: They admitted to themselves basic reality. Dominators ain't really that great. Especially without permadom.

Thunderspy has some very ambitious changes, the necromancy set sounds amazing and had me considering going over there to try it, but overall I would consider HC's cautious approach more wise than just going full "do whatever we want" mode, especially if this thing's going to get licensed (Which for the record, I doubt.)

 

Second, while I agree with the first half of your post, I reject your statement about dominators. A dominator without domination is still useful in a group, especially if domination is up. A permadom will solo better and have more consistent performance in a group, but I don't know if I'd say they are 'not great', we'll have to get into specifics there - because dominators are pretty strong in the hands of an experienced player.

Edited April 17, 2020 by ScarySai

[kenlon]

 

10 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

It depends. For a set like DB it can be pretty big, for others it can be proportionally smaller.

. . . you are dodging the question. Again.

 

I can tell you the answer, though. Less recharge = less damage in a reasonably linear manner.  If you lose enough recharge that you have 0.1 seconds of dead time, the loss of damage is going to be half of what you get for a 0.2 second dead time, and so on. (Yes, there is an edge case around powers that provide short term buffs, but that does not disprove the general case.)

 

Would you agree with that?

 

55 minutes ago, kenlon said:

If we want to keep Domination as something that can be kept up all the time without needing ongoing damage, then I'd say just remove the need to fill the bar at all. At level 1, you'd have 90 seconds of uptime with a 200s recharge, scaling smoothly with +recharge buffs until you get to perma status. 

 

Would that cover your problems with the idea, ScarySai?

Reposting this, since I think you missed it earlier, and I'm interested in your thoughts. 

[Galaxy Brain]

39 minutes ago, XaoGarrent said:

You're good at crunching numbers and you seem to know the game well inside out, but you need to work on your common sense and situational awareness. Everything you say is true. Everything you say also is very unlikely to happen the way it should.

39 minutes ago, XaoGarrent said:

 

Think twice, think real hard about what is likely to be reality versus what is your vision, and be very, very careful what you ask for. You might not be supporting a nerf explicitly, but you are implicitly, even if you don't realize you are. Context is always important, and in context you're playing with fire.

 

With the record on balance and design that the Homecoming devs have, especially the ease at which the reactionary community talks them out of improvements pretty much every time they come up with something good, the way this will pan out ultimately is that we'll get domination nerfs and at most an extremely irrelevant buff. No +recharge, no fancy ATOs, none of the many, many little but specific buffs that would polish out the comparatively large amount of rust in this AT's design. Frankly, if they go messing around with Domination, Dominators are going to need a lot more than some ATOs and a couple buffs to specific powers.

This very much depends on what is done to them. I'd say on the whole HC has made awesome changes so far for the overall good of the game and are starting with less shiny, under the hood changes to make way for bigger changes in the future.

 

You know the new chain mechanic made for their new AT's (Sentinel) epic power? That became a brand new support set not seen anywhere else! I have faith that things can change if the foundation is there, otherwise you get...

 

39 minutes ago, XaoGarrent said:

 

Just look at what they're doing over on Thunderspy for instance, that's way, way more ambitious and it's not even coming as a trade. That's because over there they did something that all the wizards and reactionary vets over here refuse to do: They admitted to themselves basic reality. Dominators ain't really that great. Especially without permadom.

 

These sorts of changes keep up long enough, and eventually people are going to start considering greener pastures. People have options now.

... the wild west that is Thunderspy and other servers. 

 

Yes, they make radical changes like revamping Mercs to have like 4 more pets, and so on. But, I doubt those changes were tested thoroughly or other sweeping changes they made were either. So far, HC's approach is more methodical and they'd rather get something right than just release it with wild changes. Rage was changed, *in beta, where wild changes should occur*, but never really changed on live because it did not fit their standards.

 

So far they haven't done anything that wildly destroys any sets or powers in my eyes, and the fixes they have done I can see have foundational roots to eliminate tech debt and make further changes more possible. I doubt they would go crazy and like, eliminate Domination or something.

[ScarySai]

30 minutes ago, kenlon said:

you are dodging the question. Again.

Pretty sure I answered you, but I'll give you one more.

 

32 minutes ago, kenlon said:

If you lose enough recharge that you have 0.1 seconds of dead time, the loss of damage is going to be half of what you get for a 0.2 second dead time, and so on.

Yes, but there are cases where the gain is massive, like perma-carrion creepers as opposed to not-perma carrion creepers, perma-eclipse/mire/soul drain over not perma eclipse/mire/soul drain, stacking/overlapping essences for shades, stacking/overlapping pets for /traps, perma PA, stacking freezing rain and similar debuffs, ect. It's not a 'one answer for all' question, which is why I gave you a vague answer.

 

Those laugh emotes are truly a good look for you, by the way. @XaoGarrent

[kenlon]

3 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

It's not a 'one answer for all' question, which is why I gave you a vague answer.

If you are 1% short of recharge to perma, say, Carrion Creepers, do you suddenly have an extended downtime on the power?

 

And you still aren't replying to my other question. If Domination were to be changed so that you didn't need to fill a bar to activate it, and it was just a 90s buff on a 200s cooldown, which would leave Permadom builds entirely unchanged while greatly smoothing out the experience for players who don't have Permadom, would that address your objections?

[ScarySai]

Just now, kenlon said:

And you still aren't replying to my other question. If Domination were to be changed so that you didn't need to fill a bar to activate it, and it was just a 90s buff on a 200s cooldown, which would leave Permadom builds entirely unchanged while greatly smoothing out the experience for players who don't have Permadom, would that address your objections?

I actually did miss that, it's late. 

 

One more, then sleep.

 

I would be fine with that, sure. I don't see them doing it, though. I would put money down on them trying to nerf it to 'compensate' for this, but I wouldn't be nearly as vehemently opposed to it as some other proposals I've seen. If existing builds will not become impacted negatively in any form and the ability becomes more usable for lower recharge builds, I am for it.

[XaoGarrent]

1 hour ago, ScarySai said:

Those laugh emotes are truly a good look for you, by the way. @XaoGarrent

I'm sorry, I just don't have time or patience for this kind of argumentation. Conservative in nature, subjectively anchored and favoring the status quo is no way to make changes, and given those three qualities and your general reaction to my posts it's really hard to convince myself to keep arguing.

 

Honestly, I didn't plan to do more than come in, drop my 2 cents and /jranger the OP's idea, and I already regret saying more than that.

 

I could, and half want to, get into a huge thing about how dominators are lopsided in design, and the numerous ways to improve them... But I'm not going to let myself get drawn into a discussion about Domination, which is inevitable, as the pink elephant in the room. Especially when I'd be on the nerfing side (which is rare but does happen) and nobody else would ever see the bigger picture of what I was trying to accomplish. 

 

I've been here before, the absolute buffet of potential ways to buff other things that I'd suggest would get shot down or more likely ignored without any honest consideration, then everyone would just stand around like...

 

 

I've been watching this happen already WITHOUT my participation. I don't even have to guess here.

 

Well, from a purely objective point of view, I guess everything is fine. I mean, it's "just a game" after all. It took literal years for anything to get even half fixed on live, and the world didn't crumble, the moon didn't crash into the earth, and Recluse didn't destroy Paragon. Why even bother change dominators at all, they don't seem to be breaking anything significant. I mean, even subjectively, lots of people like them, right? If we're not going to have some ambition and make serious changes, just leave everything be. It really is just safer and simpler that way.

 

Also, entirely relevant to the above: GalaxyBrain took things way, way overly personal. I wasn't trying to roast him, I was speaking from experience: I was that guy. Repeatedly. I've had the misfortune over the years of getting the devs ears of various games far, far too often, and not having the common sense to know when to shut up and stop digging myself and everyone else a hole. Of either mediocrity or nerfs. I'm not saying it doesn't occasionally work out (the Quartakk in Warframe says hello), but my point is be careful what you wish for.

 

This is why I just leave laughing emojis and peace out. It's really not that complicated: I'm too nihilistic and defeated for this crap. So yeah, /jranger and peace, I'm gonna go play the game, while I'm still enjoying it.

Edited April 17, 2020 by XaoGarrent

[ScarySai]

15 minutes ago, XaoGarrent said:

I'm sorry, I just don't have time or patience for this kind of argumentation.

Obviously, as your manifesto up there shows.

 

Anyway.

 

1.  /jranger is a lazy way for people who can't defend their stances to slap down discussion, it's stupid and makes the people who do it look stupid.

 

2. Some serious oversharing, dude.

 

3. Other things need a look, sure, but Thunderspy is by no stretch of the imagination the 'standard' HC should be held to, at all. At all.

Edited April 17, 2020 by ScarySai

[Indystruck]

Pointing at Thunderspy as anything but an example of real shoot from the hip adjusting for better or worse is pretty funny, honestly. Remember when they were beta testing changes to like, every melee set and they decided what War Mace needed was a 25% flat damage increase and Dual Blades should've actually been doing half of it's damage as really long duration DoTs? 

 

Just because you're willing to rapid fire from the hip doesn't mean all the shots are gonna land.

[Noyjitat]

Think all I could agree to is making it easier to build the domination bar. Permadom itself is fine the way it is and should not be something you can get without investing effort besides sos and a few cheap sets.

 

Else you’re just radically changing yet another power in this case basically the entire AT just to make it easy for the average joe.

[Haijinx]

5 hours ago, ScarySai said:

 

 

1.  /jranger is a lazy way for people who can't defend their stances to slap down discussion, it's stupid and makes the people who do it look stupid.

 

 

People really shouldn't take /jranger personally.  

 

Nor this seriously.  

 

[tidge]

12 hours ago, ScarySai said:

This is where I'll have to disagree with you. It's absolutely fair.

 

Why?

 

Because it's easily obtainable by those who wish to obtain it. It is a dramatic leap in performance and consistency.

 

Precisely. My Dominator wasn't strapped for Inf, yet my choices of powers, slot allocations and IO choices were not specifically chasing Global Recharge and IIRC that toon didn't achieve Permadom until lvl 31. While leveling up, that toon didn't feel gimped, but it certainly felt much more powerful once I was getting the Mez protection, the +Magnitude controls and the Endurance refills.

 

Once my Dom hit level 50 and the Superior / Purple sets become usable (and scale with level) Permadom becomes available at lower levels... but that doesn't mean that my Inf-rich character is 'better' than other lvl 20 ATs, it means that I'm playing an exemplared lvl 50 with access to beaucoup set bonuses! This is no different than ANY OTHER LVL 50 that exemplar's down to play low level content. Pay attention to the levels of the people you are teaming with on low/mid-level content and you will notice that it usually isn't the exemplared lvl 50s that are struggling, it is the folks who simply don't yet have the slots (or are still getting a feel for their powers).

 

One other point I'm reminded about my own journey with my Dominator: More than any other build, my Dominator was the one that I had to make hard choices about not just which powers to take but how to invest the slots. I found it to be a real balancing act between both Control and Offense, independent of the chase for Global Recharge. Even though the choices were 'hard' for me, I had many different choices. I think I may have used more respecs on my Dom than on any other character except for my multi-build VEATs. The game gave me all the tools to do this. I could totally play this toon differently, but I like the way it is. I don't need the Domination mechanic to change because I've already seen how to use it with a different variety of builds under different constraints.

 

I know the OP didn't want us to argue for 'build moar betta', but this request (completely change the mechanic so more people can get permadom at lower levels, or not have to make actual build plans) seems like asking for a handout. Are we going to get threads asking that Tanks get more inherent Defense and Resistance so they don't need to slot such powers as much as they do? Or that every toon gets an inherent +5 Res (all) or +3% Def (all) because "every build uses those expensive IOs"?

 

[Galaxy Brain]

1 minute ago, tidge said:

I Know the OP didn't want us to argue for 'build moar betta', but this request (completely change the mechanic so more people can get permadom at lower levels, or not have to make actual build plans) seems like asking for a handout. Are we going to get threads asking that Tanks get more inherent Defense and Resistance so they don't need to slot such powers as much as they do? Or that every toon gets an inherent +5 Res (all) or +3% Def (all) because "every build uses those expensive IOs"?

The suggested change doesnt make more people perma, just make it a smoother process.

 

As shown multiple times in this thread, the wall to get permadom is not comparable to any other sort of slotting, as even getting that 5%res and 3% def helps in those amounts compared to the all or nothing of 123%+ rech you need for permadom to be unlocked.

 

 

 

 

[tidge]

9 hours ago, XaoGarrent said:

Well, from a purely objective point of view, I guess everything is fine. I mean, it's "just a game" after all. It took literal years for anything to get even half fixed on live, and the world didn't crumble, the moon didn't crash into the earth, and Recluse didn't destroy Paragon. Why even bother change dominators at all, they don't seem to be breaking anything significant. I mean, even subjectively, lots of people like them, right? If we're not going to have some ambition and make serious changes, just leave everything be. It really is just safer and simpler that way.

As near as I can tell, the (inappropriate, IMO) request is that there are a few people that feel like there is some lop-sided play in the Dominator AT.

 

I disagree with that assessment. My opinion is that the Dominator AT plays like most other CoH ATs (classically) in that at some point in the life of the Dominator it blooms into a class of character very distinct from the other ATs. Along the way, hard choices have to me made between controls, attacks, but this is literally no different than any other AT. We can talk about a "wall" for Permadom, but this wall is one that is particularly easy to hop over (or just install a door in the wall to walk through).

 

Edit: From GalaxyBrain's latest post (just above)

Quote

The suggested change doesnt make more people perma, just make it a smoother process.

I accept that people may roll up Dominators not knowing what they are getting into. I remember (on live) those disappointing early missions hunting Snakes in Port Mercy. Those early disappointments didn't mean I gave up on the class because the game made it unfair! Try tanking at low levels with very few slots and no IO set bonuses and tell me that it doesn't feel like there is a "wall" in performance.

Edited April 17, 2020 by tidge

[ShardWarrior]

2 minutes ago, tidge said:

I accept that people may roll up Dominators not knowing what they are getting into. I remember (on live) those disappointing early missions hunting Snakes in Port Mercy. Those early disappointments didn't mean I gave up on the class because the game made it unfair! Try tanking at low levels with very few slots and no IO set bonuses and tell me that it doesn't feel like there is a "wall" in performance.

Excellent point.

[ScarySai]

To me, permadom is a power you should have to earn, so I don't really like the idea of just giving it away.

 

Accessibility is an easy thing to frame as "well why not? It makes things easier!" While ignoring that not everything should be easy.

[Lines]

In the example of tanking (and practically ever other form of playing I can think of), you progressively become a better tanker through small steps. A little goes a long way. Domination is unusual per the rest of the game's progression, where it requires a 122.5% recharge to bloom and anything before then is dramatically less effective.

 

At the moment, the recharge for domination at anything less than 122.5% invariably adds the time it takes for the domination bar to refill, which could be a few minutes. After 122.5%, the bar is irrelevant if you're able to click the button in time. The suggested change potentially removes the additional forced waiting time for anything less than 122.5% by allowing you to rebuild the domination bar while domination is active, ready for the next one.

 

The 122.5% requirement to perma won't change, and perma won't be available at any lower level than it is now, but you'd feel a more obvious progression towards perma as you build your global recharge.

Edited April 17, 2020 by Lines

[Galaxy Brain]

15 minutes ago, tidge said:

I accept that people may roll up Dominators not knowing what they are getting into. I remember (on live) those disappointing early missions hunting Snakes in Port Mercy. Those early disappointments didn't mean I gave up on the class because the game made it unfair! Try tanking at low levels with very few slots and no IO set bonuses and tell me that it doesn't feel like there is a "wall" in performance.

It's different.

 

Imagine that as a Tanker, you are able to function well enough normally. But, the moment you hit over 50% Toxic resist your damage instantly shoots up by 20% before enhancements/other bonuses, your target caps increase per power, and you gain 100% bonus regen. 

 

You're fine before hitting that 50% benchmark, but you are undoubtedly much better at what you do afterward. Given the return on investment, many people would opt to build into hitting that and those who cannot reliably hit it for any reason have a noticable gap compared to those who can sustain that threshold. 

 

Now, if Tankers were changed to then have these bonuses scale up with Toxic Resist up to 50%, keeping the same total benefit as before, does this take away from those who already had 50% res and the bonus?

 

Edited April 17, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[tidge]

12 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

It's different.

 

Imagine that as a Tanker, you are able to function well enough normally. But, the moment you hit over 50% Toxic resist your damage instantly shoots up by 20% before enhancements/other bonuses, your target caps increase per power, and you gain 100% bonus regen.

I counter with this: If you play a tank with a Resist/Defense hole against certain enemies, your "damage" drops by a helluvalotmore than 20% if you are unable to hang with those enemies and attack them. I suspect that folks aren't noticing this (or just aren't remembering it) because they are playing ATs with soft-capped defenses. Building for Defense across all ATs is almost certainly more common than building for Permadom.

 

This thread is literally just another: "I have ideas how to radically change a core (as of CoV) class. Let me spitball some rationalizations for my ideas in the forums."

 

The only post in the thread that leaned towards there being an actual issue that got me curious was Hereclea's post about how she felt that her Dominator was weak when exemplared to level 20 (specifically when teaming on TFs like Synapse)... but that is because I'm curious about the specifics of her build as far as power choices. The OP specifically wanted to avoid build discussions, so I've let that lie.

[Galaxy Brain]

32 minutes ago, tidge said:

I counter with this: If you play a tank with a Resist/Defense hole against certain enemies, your "damage" drops by a helluvalotmore than 20% if you are unable to hang with those enemies and attack them.

This is a poor counter as it does not address the self-buff example. This is like comparing two types of fish and saying that one of them is bad if you put it on land instead of comparing their fins and how they go through the water, or I guess for a CoH example saying that Combat Jumping is an awful power because you can't use it to get from island to island in the Shadow Shard in one go. 

 

Of course if you go up against something you are specifically weak against you're gonna have a bad time. What about the example of how that stat bonus would only apply past 50% Toxic Resist for tankers?

 

 

Quote

I suspect that folks aren't noticing this (or just aren't remembering it) because they are playing ATs with soft-capped defenses. Building for Defense across all ATs is almost certainly more common than building for Permadom.

Objectively, yes as there are 13 other AT's than Doms. However, when building defense 30% is still useful and gets you objectively tougher than you were at 20% by a comparable margin. Getting 120%, and 123% recharge on a Dom is equivalent to jumping from 0% to Soft Cap in how much of a gamechanger it is.

 

Quote

 

This thread is literally just another: "I have ideas how to radically change a core (as of CoV) class. Let me spitball some rationalizations for my ideas in the forums."

 

The only post in the thread that leaned towards there being an actual issue that got me curious was Hereclea's post about how she felt that her Dominator was weak when exemplared to level 20 (specifically when teaming on TFs like Synapse)... but that is because I'm curious about the specifics of her build as far as power choices. The OP specifically wanted to avoid build discussions, so I've let that lie.

You know, that issue is what I've been trying to address specifically by allowing Domination to be more accessible as you level instead of having a wall you need to build to hop over once you achieve a certain point.

Edited April 17, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[Replacement]

1 hour ago, ScarySai said:

To me, permadom is a power you should have to earn, so I don't really like the idea of just giving it away.

 

Accessibility is an easy thing to frame as "well why not? It makes things easier!" While ignoring that not everything should be easy.

Pride.

[ScarySai]

2 minutes ago, Replacement said:

Pride.

Shortsighted.