Armour Set T9s. A Discussion Of Their Design

[Replacement]

4 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Or would you rather they just stay as set mules rather than proper capstones?

Capstone powers so bad, they tried to hand them out to other ATs as Epics and people still don't take them?!

 

Still waiting for my Tanker Thunderous Blast.

[Yoru-hime]

It's an odd situation we're in. Many of the defensive capstone powers are fatally flawed. The powersets around them, however, are generally not only fine without them, but most perform exceptionally well. Many defensive sets can already be built up into near-indestructible states even without the T9, some with relative ease. Even SO-only builds are safely able to manage content at well above base difficulty.

 

So I feel compelled to ask:

 

While functional T9s sound great, do we really want to push the bar on defensive set performance even higher than it already is?

Are we willing to accept a downward revision of other powers in the sets to keep things generally level as the T9 is improved?

 

I think most of our answers to the second question would be "No" and given the sub-forum, probably very caustic and angry "No"s at that, but I'm back and forth on the first. In principle, moving the T9 powers from a dysfunctional mechanic to a functional one is almost by definition a buff that the performance of the sets as a whole makes hard to justify. That said, I'd love to see these powers fixed because a bad T9 feels like a real disappointment after the effort of leveling a character to 32 or 38, and I think the ideas in the OP are a solid potential starting point for doing so.

[America's Angel]

27 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

...unless we dove super into unique perks per set.

Do this.

 

Anything else is just foreplay to an actual idea.

[Nanolathe]

@Yoru-hime I agree, and it's entirely possible the the original developers were caught between the exact same rock and hard-place. I think that the current implementation of the T9 powers are absolutely not fit for purpose. They're designed in such a way as to have become "trap" powers, and more recently, mere mules for IO sets or Global enhancements. I don't know what the correct answer is for actually fixing the problems that the entire sets have, with regards to their capstone powers being vestigial. Well, other than re-evaluating them all from the ground up to include the capstone as something viable and valuable.

 

Somehow I don't think that's on the cards even if it did have more widespread support. I just wanted to bring an idea I had been putting off to a place where it's a more well rounded and developed "plan of attack" so to speak for if these powers were deemed interesting enough to be reworked. If it were possible, I would love to have some kind of proof of concept style tests done at least. At some point we have to admit that the place these powers once occupied is no longer a valuable one, nor desirable. 

 

Equally, we may have to admit that we live in a flawed universe and that they are unsalvageable without a rather substantial rework to the sets themselves.

 

I would like to believe that changing them would open up more doors than it would ever close, and be something of an evolution of the Archetypes that have access to them. That's the way I look at changes anyhow. But I've never gotten so attached to a character, or a specific build, or a stash of enhancements, within CoX that I would block change if it were change for the better more interesting.

 

To answer your question as an individual; Yes, I would like to see a downward revision of sets, especially those that overperform handily in their current iteration. I see that as balancing out a skewed design though. If I may get on my soap-box for a moment: Every power should have at least some inherent value beyond just IO Set Bonus and Global Enhancement optimisation.

 

Edit:

@America's Angel, At no point did I say that more detailed and unique perks for each set was unaccountable within this system. I did mention in the post that individual set ideas would be something I was very open to discussing. However I think some form of base is needed to work from, otherwise you've got a free-for-all without any kind of structure. If you disagree with that, that's fine. But I find that having something basic and universal will be better for much generating more creative results than just saying "whatever you want". We do have to consider some form of inter-set parity of power levels after all. If they all start from a similar position you'll get results that are comparable. If you start from very different points then you're going to get things that really don't line up at all.

 

The majority of the T9s being awful proves this, since they are all of a similar design. It's not the intrinsic similarity between each other that makes them bad, otherwise every T1 and T2 "punch" would be considered bad. It's the fact that they're all starting from the wrong place.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Nanolathe

[Menelruin]

Well, for the FAR future, an answer to power creep would be additional (and harder) content....but then you get the issue of something either being too easy for min-maxers, or too hard for casuals.

[Redlynne]

To give you a sense of my reaction to the thought processes involved here, I'll just annotate the quotes to provide what I was thinking while reading through the OP.

8 hours ago, Nanolathe said:

Pre-Fight Prep powers are just what you think they are. You'd use them before, or just as a fight begins.

At which point I was thinking ... "so, something you toggle on in advance that has a minimal upkeep cost until it gets triggered by a threshold condition during combat, at which point the REAL boost takes effect?"

 

In other words, a toggle power that functions as a "fire and forget" kind of contingency that you PRESET before the battle which will activate IF needed by defined conditionals.

 

It was at that point that I started thinking in terms of "if you take a damage hit that exceeds X% of your Current/Max HP then the conditional triggers the T9 power's effects in response to taking that hard of a hit" and wondered if it was even possible to code such a conditional trigger into a toggle like that ... kind of like how "Scourge" functions such as the Preventative Medicine Absorb proc and the like are encoded.  That way, the T9 effect doesn't "start" until you need it to as a "counter" to what is happening during combat.  The T9 becomes a "reactive thing" which doesn't require Player input to command happen "now" to save you from defeat.  It literally becomes a Contingency that you prep ahead of time and then automatically make use of when the situation calls for it.

 

And the only way to do THAT would be to switch from Clicks to Toggles.

9 hours ago, Nanolathe said:

Make the Pre-Fight Prep T9s… toggles. No, I’m serious. Make Them Toggles. Toggles, so that the player has control over when they can start them up and when they can wind them down. Give the player control over when they want to slug it out for just a few more seconds or when they want to back off on the gas pedal because they’re tapped.

Oh ... so we're thinking the same thing here.  Change the paradigm from Click to Toggle.  Okay.

 

I would also point out that switching from a Click to a Toggle can have some VERY interesting implications for how a power functions in actual gameplay, particularly if it's a Toggle which isn't meant to be a "full time" use case.  The example I would pull out for this is both Hibernate in Ice Armor, which you can "terminate" on command by toggling it off, but also Dimension Shift in the Gravity Control powerset, which originally was a Click power.  However, the Click version of Dimension Shift meant that it was not possible for the Controller who cast Dimension Shift to "terminate on command" because the duration was baked into the power itself and therefore immutable while it was a Click.

 

Here's the important thing to think about with the example of Dimension Shift though.

Dimension Shift is a toggle that has a maximum duration of 20s, but has a recharge time of 60s ... that doesn't begin to recharge until the power is toggled off ... meaning there is simply no way to perma Dimension Shift.  You can build for enough recharge to get close to a 50% uptime (20s duration followed by a 20s recharge before recasting), but you're NEVER going to get up to 100% uptime like you can with a Click power (such as Hasten or Chrono Shift or ... you get the idea).

 

And that then makes for a useful alternative framing of what might be a good idea to do for T9 Armor toggles.

 

 

 

Specifically ... I'm thinking in terms of a shorter duration (180s is just stupidly long) and a shorter recharge (1000s is just stupidly long!).

Using the precedent of Dimension Shift, something akin to a 3:1 ratio (hmmm, where has that come up before?) of duration to recharge sounds about right to me for an Armor T9 Toggle guideline.

 

 

 

 

So here's a theoretical framework to start thinking about this notion in.

 

Use of an Armor T9 Toggle would have "phases" of increasing cost for keeping the toggle on.  In this case, I'm thinking of simply leveraging the mechanic that makes global endurance reduction work in set bonuses and powers like Victory Rush and so on.

 

All you have to do is give the Armor T9 Toggle a 20s activation which will do all of its buffing (just like now) but which will not stack from the same caster.  That way you get full buffs upon Toggle On and they don't change until Toggle Off.  But then you add another parameter that will add +X% Global Endurance Cost penalty which WILL stack(!) every 20s(!).  Mind you, that's an increase to ALL ENDURANCE COSTS OF ALL POWERS (!!!) ... not just the endurance cost of paying for the Armor T9 Toggle.  That would make EVERYTHING that you're doing more expensive to sustain.  You then need to code a way to "expire immediately" all of the Global Endurance Cost mods upon Toggle Off of the Armor T9 Toggle, no matter how many of them have been stacked up onto the character ... so that when you Toggle Off you can begin to "recover" from the strain of trying to sustain it for as long as you did.

 

Of course, if you're a Tanker who is doing nothing besides casting Taunt (which has a 0 endurance cost), it's possible to come up with builds that might be able to sustain that kind of global endurance penalty for substantial periods of time (Hamidon raids anyone?) ... but you wouldn't be much good for anything else, because at that point you'd be operating purely as an aggro magnet in a purely protective mode.

 

So the "crash" would be something that "grows" on you over time, as continuing use of the Armor T9 Toggle becomes increasingly "exhausting" to sustain.  But then once you drop the toggle, the increased cost expires and you're back in business.

9 hours ago, Nanolathe said:

I’m imagining a “critical hit” style notification on your hud that tells you you’re now on borrowed time and your endurance is about to flow a lot less freely in about 10 seconds.

This is my thought at well.  Something that is popping up into your view the "Exhaustion" penalty amount that you're now in would give you everything you need to know about what continuing to use the Armor T9 Toggle is (now) costing you, so there are no surprises.  So using my above Fibonacci-ish numbering sequence for the endurance penalty you'd have "Exhaustion +10%" showing up on your screen, just like when you get a salvage drop or a recipe drop or whatever, TELLING you which segment of the increasing endurance cost you're getting yourself into.  It's then up to the Player to decide how long they think they can hold out for ... bearing in mind that chomping Blue Skittles could help sustain you just that little bit longer that you need IF you need to.

 

Point being though that the Armor T9 Toggles would turn into something you'd actually want to use MORE THAN ONCE per mission.  Ideally speaking I'm thinking in terms of a recharge time of no more than 240s (4 minutes) which could be enhanced ... however, under the circumstances, going with 180s might be a better choice.  I say that because with +200% recharge, you'd be looking at around 60s worth of downtime between uses of your Armor T9 Toggle ... which is "fast enough" to be something you'd be inclined to use rather than (permanently) save as a Panic Button, while also ensuring that there are periods of downtime during which you won't have your Armor T9 Toggle up ... creating an "ups and downs" dynamic that would be far more controllable than what we currently have.

[Abysmalyxia]

Have the powers be on a 60 (30/15/whatever) minute cooldown and they trigger automatically when you go below 5% heelth. They lose the crash but release a Nike when they activate.

 

Example: Frank the Invincible Tanker is getting his ass kicked. He drops below 5% health. Unstoppable kicks in automatically, releases a Nova like nuke, boosts his protections, and then goes on a 60 minute (or less) cooldown.

[Snowdaze]

6 hours ago, Nanolathe said:

Equally, we may have to admit that we live in a flawed universe and that they are unsalvageable without a rather substantial rework to the sets themselves.

I like this! Lets Explore the Nihilistic approach... T9's are worthless and always will be! So are all the powers that come before them! Why is it all so pointless! We clear a mission only to see the same guy's name on the police scanner again and he is in the same building? Why are we even trying to save the city? Crime will never learn! 

 

/humor 

[Replacement]

5 hours ago, Abysmalyxia said:

They lose the crash but release a Nike when they activate.

So, like, a big swoosh appears over your head? Regeneration upgrades Integration to Brand Integration? 😅

 

But in all seriousness, I would be ok with remaking them as auto triggers, but I'd rather have more mega mode than a nuke (or a Nike). And I feel like it would be an even bigger cottage upheaval than the OP.

[KelvinKole]

Forgive me, but I feel like the game already has a good precedent for a better way to design these powers. See Radiation Armor, Bio Armor, and Ice Armor (Icy Bastion). To me, you have to start with an evaluation of each set, and then redesign the tier 9 to provide something it doesn't already do well or provide an otherwise valuable benefit. Super Reflexes and Energy Aura don't need more defense, Electric Armor doesn't need more resistance. I'm not going to take these powers, even if they're a toggle.  Shorten the durations and the recharges to remove the "last stand" hesitancy of using them and, yes, get rid of the crash. 

[BZRKR]

This is a neat idea!

 

I wonder if the concept can't be made to fit the current armor T9's, is it possible you've found the framework for how one of the unimplemented Incarnate slots could work?

[Yoru-hime]

I don't think we need to collapse into total nihilism. The universe is delightfully flawed, which allows us to blame its poor design for any number of mistakes we might make along the way. 😄

 

Bringing up Incarnates as a counter-argument doesn't work. Destiny powers, in particular, are just absurd. They're designed to break the game and they do it well. There are many powers and some sets that would virtually cease to exist if we started down the "but when you stack with Incarnate powers" path. Barrier lets you do stupid things. Ageless lets you do stupid things. No other powers (and very little content) in the game are balanced with them in mind. We shouldn't arbitrarily start here.

 

-

 

An idea I had for crashing would be something along the lines of the old Vahzilok Wasting Disease, reducing your Max Endurance and Recovery by a percentage for two minutes as the buff wears off. You've been fighting at your absolute peak and you're feeling winded. It doesn't immediately crash your endurance or compromise your defenses below your original baseline (aka actively try to kill you), but it'd be enough of a nuisance to make you deal with it. It could be managed if you're aware and on top of things, but it certainly could drop your toggles and kill you if you just ignore it long enough. I'm not sure this is an actual improvement over the original idea, but it might be easier to implement. It keeps a bit of the original concept of "there's a price to pay for pushing yourself to this level" that you can't avoid or immediately disable while keeping the risk to a level that may be more tolerable to the playerbase.

[Naraka]

Having read the 1st page of the thread, my thoughts started to drift away from tier 9s but to sets as a whole.

 

Something I notice is that, as posters roll ideas off each other, the mentality seems to start revolving around min/maxing.  Looking at what sets lack and trying to take any avenue that powerset has available to fill that hole or make up for that lack.  That isn't how you min/max.  You min/max with your power pool choices, your slot choices, IOs and powerset *combinations*.  Especially with armor sets, they are suppose to have kinks to exploit, and you the player use your knowledge to cover that kink or avoid getting it exploited.

 

That all being said, if you're going to redesign the tier 9s, you likely have to do it on a set-by-set basis, not through a one-size-fits-all change.  Some sets, you might be able to sell it as a short duration toggle with no crash, others are likely better as long recharge clicks.  But beyond that, why is there always this push for sub-3min recharge times for everything?  AoE holds, I could kind of see with a lower cooldown but what purpose does having this power on a 2min cooldown (once you slot it)?  Wouldn't it be easier to change the power to a toggle but *keep* the recharge and if the power is deemed not too strong, you can then lower it.  But if this toggle starts off with a low 3min cooldown and you find some unplanned interaction that makes it way stronger than anticipated, you then have to look into nerfing that thing which is apparently taboo. 

 

But the sets can already accomplish sustainable performance on decent difficulty settings in teams.  What is the goal here, performance wise?  Not talking about what you want out of the power or powerset but how does this function on a team?  Team cohesion is on a shaky platform as is.  Is this suppose to make teaming better?  Solo better?  Are we looking at shaking up sustain numbers across the game?

 

While I wouldn't mind a change to tier 9s overall, there's also that voice I hear that chants when discussing bringing certain changes around to things like IOs: "Just leave it the fark alone."  It echoes when I discuss things I want to change as well as when I'd rather they stay the same.

[Nanolathe]

@Naraka, While it is often be true that min/max discussion is often hyper-focused on by a specific subset of this forum's members, that is not the intention of the original post. This isn't about making the sets more powerful, or plugging their specific weaknesses, or trying to find a new angle to make the ATs with access to these sets into more min/max-y iterations. It is about taking a set of powers that are mechanically useless and making them usable. While I understand where you're coming from; "The sets themselves aren't broken, so why fix it?" is a valid concern to have, I find that the sets are actually somewhat lacklustre. The old sets for which these problems are most pronounced, can be very dry from a player interaction standpoint. You toggle up... and that's pretty much it. I would like things to be a bit more dynamic. Dynamism is one of the key descriptive words most people would associate with the comic book hero genre, and yet what we mostly have here is pretty flat. The goal of the changes proposed would be in service of giving the late game of these powersets something interesting to interact with - that means you have to engage with the mechanics of the power beyond "set it and forget it" - which is in my opinion a much better situation to be in than what we have currently.

 

Armour sets are very prolific sets, being one of the key pillars of 5 out of 13 Archetypes (or 14/15. Depends how you count). That's at least a third of all ATs having to play with powersets that have weird vestigial powers that don't make sense anymore. While the sets on the whole aren't broken, the capstone power, the thing you unlock last and should be your most powerful asset is an actual, literal punchline. They are pointed at and used as a point of reference for what not to do with a power. If that doesn't warrant their admission into the "This should be fixed" club, I don't know what does. Nor what would convince you to change your stance on them.

 

If they, of all things, shouldn't be changed because it would rock the boat too much... then I'd find it hard to argue that anything deserves to be changed.

 

Edit:

If you want to talk about specific changes to specific powers, and rebuild them from the ground up, I'm all for that, since as stated in my OP I think the cottage rule is a bludgeon applied to far too many good ideas. But here I tried to tailor and pitch this idea so as to not "spook" anyone into kneejerk reactions against it based on poor number crunching on my part. I won't even try to hide that I am not capable of number crunching like some others on this forum and I don't want to compete in that arena. 

 

I want to have the discussion over the concept's merit, rather than ignoring it in favour of endless "number talk" and min/maxing fixations. Which is generally why I haven't responded to posts that try to suck me into defending the numbers. 

 

I won't do it, y'here me!?

Edited May 21, 2020 by Nanolathe

[golstat2003]

Agreed with @Nanolathe, the idea here should be to focus on T9 improvements. The sets themselves is best left for a discussion at another time.

Making the T9s interesting (AND NOT ANNOYING) to use is a great idea.

[Galaxy Brain]

@America's Angel, you do realize all the sets across the 4 ATs are essentially the same outside of some tweaks stalkers have?

 

The blaster sustain changes are very relevant here as they were all changed in roughly the same manner. Turning like powers into (toggles) is definitely analogous. 

Edited May 21, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[Naraka]

2 hours ago, Nanolathe said:

@Naraka, While it is often be true that min/max discussion is often hyper-focused on by a specific subset of this forum's members, that is not the intention of the original post. This isn't about making the sets more powerful, or plugging their specific weaknesses, or trying to find a new angle to make the ATs with access to these sets into more min/max-y iterations. It is about taking a set of powers that are mechanically useless and making them usable. While I understand where you're coming from; "The sets themselves aren't broken, so why fix it?" is a valid concern to have, I find that the sets are actually somewhat lacklustre. The old sets for which these problems are most pronounced, can be very dry from a player interaction standpoint. You toggle up... and that's pretty much it. I would like things to be a bit more dynamic. Dynamism is one of the key descriptive words most people would associate with the comic book hero genre, and yet what we mostly have here is pretty flat. The goal of the changes proposed would be in service of giving the late game of these powersets something interesting to interact with - that means you have to engage with the mechanics of the power beyond "set it and forget it" - which is in my opinion a much better situation to be in than what we have currently.

Before I make some statements about your posts, I'll just remind you that I'm pretty contrarian when it comes to the forums.  Not to be combative but to spark discussion and to get people to engage with topics that might not get brought up or focused on.

 

That being said, I agree that I'd probably enjoy CoX more if the powers and combat had a more dynamic feel.  As is, it's pretty strategic in how you plan, position and target for your skills.  So I do like that dynamism point you're making...HOWEVER, that is literally antithetical to those of the min/max side of the game.  They don't want dynamism, they want static.  Consider there is an AT whose concept is built around these dynamic shifts of unlimited power and more meek reservist styles, and what do you think the meta does to it?  They completely circumvent these shifts and fight tooth and nail to keep it that way.  In case anyone reading this post don't know, I'm talking about the Dominator and specifically the Domination power.  In that example, dynamism and the mechanisms to circumvent the shifts in this power don't really coexist well in the game's meta.  It's do or don't, perma or bust.

 

2 hours ago, Nanolathe said:

Armour sets are very prolific sets, being one of the key pillars of 5 out of 13 Archetypes (or 14/15. Depends how you count). That's at least a third of all ATs having to play with powersets that have weird vestigial powers that don't make sense anymore. While the sets on the whole aren't broken, the capstone power, the thing you unlock last and should be your most powerful asset is an actual, literal punchline. They are pointed at and used as a point of reference for what not to do with a power. If that doesn't warrant their admission into the "This should be fixed" club, I don't know what does. Nor what would convince you to change your stance on them.

If these powers were still dynamic and not perma and mainly only boosted survival some, I don't really see them being much of a capstone as a toggle either.  There's not much further you can go with the armor sets because survival is pretty much hard limited by hit chance clamp, resistance caps and HP.  So the spectrum lies with "not dying" and dead.  Where does the rest of the set lie on that spectrum?  Likely somewhere in between, closer toward "not dying" so the only growth left is pushing the rest of the way the full extreme of "not dying".

 

There could be stuff like utility added to these powers, but as toggles with such fast cooldowns, you're really boosting a set of ATs that likely don't need more help in that department.  Still could be an avenue to go toward but consideration really should be kept on inter-AT balance.  If you're adding in utility to these ATs through the tier 9, why should it have no price?  Okay, so it's a toggle that will become really expensive to run after a time, but is that actually a price?  It's only a price to those that want to try to perma it but to everyone else, it's just extra cheese.

 

2 hours ago, Nanolathe said:

If they, of all things, shouldn't be changed because it would rock the boat too much... then I'd find it hard to argue that anything deserves to be changed.

It's a pretty nihilistic perspective but it's true.  Next time you discuss changes about IOs and rebalancing them, are you on the side that wants to keep certain bonuses like def or rech the same?  

 

But if we're talking more pie-in-the-sky here, why do the tier 9s have to function the same for each AT?  Why can't 1 of the ATs (such as Tankers) get a much more milder buff (like shaved down to 10% of the buff they get now) but also apply that buff to teammates?  Making them a semi-team support....while Brutes get a more offensively fueled toggle that eats away at their fury?

 

I guess, to me, these blanket suggestions, while somewhat "easier" to grasp and apply, only goes in so far as to be easy to implement but extremely difficult to balance.  It'd be easier to just re-asses the power from the ground up, to include the AT and their role on a team.

[Naraka]

1 hour ago, golstat2003 said:

Agreed with @Nanolathe, the idea here should be to focus on T9 improvements. The sets themselves is best left for a discussion at another time.

Making the T9s interesting (AND NOT ANNOYING) to use is a great idea.

Frankly, I would argue that making the tier 9s as accessible as possible makes them *LESS* interesting, likely because you have to balance that level of access into the power's effects.  Powers that are less accessible, available less often, have stipulations to be concerned with can be more powerful.

 

Or maybe our philosophies don't line up.  I feel, in the realm of a game, a system like the one that exists from HunterXHunter is more a demonstration of balance as you can put more limiting conditions on your own Nen to make your Nen much more powerful.  Concepts like postmortem Nen are some of the most powerful abilities in that system and usually require the user to be dying or dead.  That introduces a *truly* dynamic system with a large spectrum.  A toggle that you just have to turn off is less dynamic than the current iteration of tier 9s.

[Galaxy Brain]

12 minutes ago, America's Angel said:

This guy gets it.

Agreed,  I'd go as far as to say make every "shared" set different between ATs in some way.

 

It always kinda irked me in a teeny tiny way that like, once I've tried X set, it felt off limits to me on another AT since "I already did that one". If say, Brute and Tanker armors had even 2 powers different between them that'd be huge

[marcussmythe]

18 minutes ago, Naraka said:

There could be stuff like utility added to these powers, but as toggles with such fast cooldowns, you're really boosting a set of ATs that likely don't need more help in that department.  Still could be an avenue to go toward but consideration really should be kept on inter-AT balance.  If you're adding in utility to these ATs through the tier 9, why should it have no price?  Okay, so it's a toggle that will become really expensive to run after a time, but is that actually a price?  It's only a price to those that want to try to perma it but to everyone else, it's just extra cheese.

Because in at least some cases, these particular powersets bring little or nothing to the table, compared to equally survivable compatriots.  Most of your sets with T9 Suicide Buttons are older sets, show it, lacking damage, sustainability, or utility mechanisms present in later, better designed sets.

[Snowdaze]

36 minutes ago, Naraka said:

But if we're talking more pie-in-the-sky here, why do the tier 9s have to function the same for each AT?  Why can't 1 of the ATs (such as Tankers) get a much more milder buff (like shaved down to 10% of the buff they get now) but also apply that buff to teammates?  Making them a semi-team support....while Brutes get a more offensively fueled toggle that eats away at their fury?

 

I guess, to me, these blanket suggestions, while somewhat "easier" to grasp and apply, only goes in so far as to be easy to implement but extremely difficult to balance.  It'd be easier to just re-asses the power from the ground up, to include the AT and their role on a team.

Gunna have to go for comment of the day on this one, our focus might have been to narrow. Ultimately these T9's are infrequently being used. No one really looks forward to them, they are just there. Maybe going the individual AT route and have them something exciting and something people want to get is the way to go. Sure some of them could stay as survivability buffs, but not all the armor sets are focused on survivability and some of them even have great themes to play off of: Elec, Fire (I know it's a res, but it's also infrequently  taken), SR, etc... they are are different and fantastic. We all acknowledge the issue, but what we really lack is coherence on a course of action. But we all know what we DON'T like about these things: Crash that will kill you, redundancy.

28 minutes ago, Naraka said:

Or maybe our philosophies don't line up.  I feel, in the realm of a game, a system like the one that exists from HunterXHunter is more a demonstration of balance as you can put more limiting conditions on your own Nen to make your Nen much more powerful.  Concepts like postmortem Nen are some of the most powerful abilities in that system and usually require the user to be dying or dead.  That introduces a *truly* dynamic system with a large spectrum.  A toggle that you just have to turn off is less dynamic than the current iteration of tier 9s.

This seems a vague concept, I got the just of it, but due to it's terminology, it made it difficult. Not everyone, my self as an example, has watched HunterXHunter, and thus not sure what Nen is exactly.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Snowdaze

[golstat2003]

31 minutes ago, Naraka said:

Frankly, I would argue that making the tier 9s as accessible as possible makes them *LESS* interesting, likely because you have to balance that level of access into the power's effects.  Powers that are less accessible, available less often, have stipulations to be concerned with can be more powerful.

 

Or maybe our philosophies don't line up.  I feel, in the realm of a game, a system like the one that exists from HunterXHunter is more a demonstration of balance as you can put more limiting conditions on your own Nen to make your Nen much more powerful.  Concepts like postmortem Nen are some of the most powerful abilities in that system and usually require the user to be dying or dead.  That introduces a *truly* dynamic system with a large spectrum.  A toggle that you just have to turn off is less dynamic than the current iteration of tier 9s.

Interesting, but let's keep this in mind:

 

1. If it's like the old CRASH of the Tier 9 nukes., no dice. A majority of players use to avoid those on blasters just because of the crash.

2. Powers that are less accessible, available less often, have stipulations to be concerned with can be more powerful. -- sounds interesting, but I'm not sure a lot of players would care at that point.

[Naraka]

41 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

This seems a vague concept, I got the just of it, but due to it's terminology, it made it difficult. Not everyone, my self as an example, has watched HunterXHunter, and thus not sure what Nen is exactly.

Yeah, there are entire Youtube channels dedicated to talking about HxH, the characters and Nen in general.  It's basically the power system of that series.  Ultimately, with Nen, you can do anything if you understand and train Nen.  Your imagination and willpower are your limitations.

 

55 minutes ago, marcussmythe said:

Because in at least some cases, these particular powersets bring little or nothing to the table, compared to equally survivable compatriots.  Most of your sets with T9 Suicide Buttons are older sets, show it, lacking damage, sustainability, or utility mechanisms present in later, better designed sets.

Bio and Rad aside, do you play those sets for the damage, sustainability and utility of the tier 9?  Or is it the rest of the set?  But including both, I think it's been said they are both stronger performing armor sets (possibly even overperforming).  If that is the goal, to make all armor sets perform stronger, then that should be the stated goal not obfuscated by promises of making the sets more fun and dynamic.

 

41 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

1. If it's like the old CRASH of the Tier 9 nukes., no dice. A majority of players use to avoid those on blasters just because of the crash.

And in that respect, it actually made blasting less dynamic.  Now the ranged nukes are more akin to extra strong AoEs and the differentiation between sets is decreased because all sets get crashless nukes instead of it being a feature or stipulation of certain sets.

 

What about instead of a crash after the armor tier 9, you have to be in a weakened state before you can use the power?  Can even put a heal in there...I think the OP talked about mechanics to "reset the fight".

 

43 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

2. Powers that are less accessible, available less often, have stipulations to be concerned with can be more powerful. -- sounds interesting, but I'm not sure a lot of players would care at that point.

There's very little space for growth, really.  And by high levels, you're also looking at Incarnate powers.

[Nanolathe]

 

2 hours ago, Naraka said:

Before I make some statements about your posts, I'll just remind you that I'm pretty contrarian when it comes to the forums.  Not to be combative but to spark discussion and to get people to engage with topics that might not get brought up or focused on.

 

That being said, I agree that I'd probably enjoy CoX more if the powers and combat had a more dynamic feel.  As is, it's pretty strategic in how you plan, position and target for your skills.  So I do like that dynamism point you're making...HOWEVER, that is literally antithetical to those of the min/max side of the game.  They don't want dynamism, they want static.  Consider there is an AT whose concept is built around these dynamic shifts of unlimited power and more meek reservist styles, and what do you think the meta does to it?  They completely circumvent these shifts and fight tooth and nail to keep it that way.  In case anyone reading this post don't know, I'm talking about the Dominator and specifically the Domination power.  In that example, dynamism and the mechanisms to circumvent the shifts in this power don't really coexist well in the game's meta.  It's do or don't, perma or bust.

 

Unfortunately that's where the different play styles just don't gel. I am on the side that would want a battlefield situation to shift, and where adaptability would be the measurement of success, rather than getting the highest, most stable numbers possible. Not constant changing. There is such a thing as overloading the capability of the player, but something that, every now and then will challenge your accumulated wisdom and reward creative thinking and power use in-game, rather than overly catering for those that think in terms of "builds".

 

I am aware of the Dominator's current capital I, issue when it comes to how the metagame views builds. I may at some point have posted about it, but since I only play 1 Dominator with any kind of regularity I don't feel experienced enough with the AT to have a definitive answer to the problem. I do consider perma-domination as an exploit, if that lets you understand my mindset on the issue. And I'm willing to bet that you and many others, could have figured that out without me even having to say it. 

 

The meta-gamers have eight powers they've already stripped down, sucked the lifeblood out of and tuned into soulless, perfectly efficient algorithms that have the least variance possible in terms of clear time and combat optimisations. Can't you* give me, the person that wants to play this game for a bit of escapist nonsense, just one power that is designed with my desires in mind? Something fun and thematic that really speaks to the comic book genre? I don't need another power that's going to keep my damage and health numbers at stable levels at all times to the exclusion of all else. Theme and mechanics coming together to produce something interesting, not predictable. I want to feel like a super hero damnit! I want the secret weapons! I want the sudden mid-fight turn around! I want to win against overwhelming odds because I found the guts and gumption within my character for just long enough to pull the iron out of the fire! 

 

(Edit: *Not directed as a complaint to you personally Naraka. I'm talking generally, not specifically)

 

Every time its safe, reliable, repeatable results... ... ... ... I'm not saying that the powers need to be broken and unbalanced and not well thought out. this isn't about "chance" mechanics. It's about pressure and decision making on the knife's edge. I'm rambling. Let's move on.

 

2 hours ago, Naraka said:

If these powers were still dynamic and not perma and mainly only boosted survival some, I don't really see them being much of a capstone as a toggle either.  There's not much further you can go with the armor sets because survival is pretty much hard limited by hit chance clamp, resistance caps and HP.  So the spectrum lies with "not dying" and dead.  Where does the rest of the set lie on that spectrum?  Likely somewhere in between, closer toward "not dying" so the only growth left is pushing the rest of the way the full extreme of "not dying".

 

There could be stuff like utility added to these powers, but as toggles with such fast cooldowns, you're really boosting a set of ATs that likely don't need more help in that department.  Still could be an avenue to go toward but consideration really should be kept on inter-AT balance.  If you're adding in utility to these ATs through the tier 9, why should it have no price?  Okay, so it's a toggle that will become really expensive to run after a time, but is that actually a price?  It's only a price to those that want to try to perma it but to everyone else, it's just extra cheese.

Unfortunately I'm very much aware that the powersets that would receive these new proposed T9 powers are among some of the least deserving of more survivability power. They just don't need it. That doesn't mean I am happy with the position that they're currently in however. The fact that I can say "They just don't need it." is the very crux of the issue. The worst T9s have been essentially erased from consideration when it comes to a sets overall power levels. They're worthless and the original Devs knew it. The writing was on the wall for so long, and the (I feel) unfortunate outcome was that they were essentially ignored. As the game evolved the T9s were not kept "current". I didn't use the word vestigial lightly; it is exactly what they have become. Only Granite Armour truly "survived" this cull, which is why I brought it up in my notes for the OP. I suppose the old T9 Rez powers for Fire and Dark did too, but while the Rez powers are completely functional, and do add something to their sets they are only generally used by those that haven't mastered the game and how to avoid death, which both of those sets are completely capable of doing without all that much more effort, if any. Oh, and the fact that resurection is a 1000Inf Inspiration away... than you can email to yourself so you don't even need to have them "on you" when playing the game.

 

Can you tell that I have problems with the "meta game" yet? 🙃

 

Maybe the time has come for them to be cut out and replaced by something else? The problem is I have trouble suggesting what could be added to the Armour sets at this point. They are... for better or worse, pretty lean when it comes to design space to explore that would actually, significantly alter any one of their play styles. As you said above, the meta is in agreement and their strengths are in how rock solid most of their defences are. Do not think I don't know why the knockback protection hole keeps being dragged out, again and again, for discussion. People want their defences to be as close as possible to OMNI-defence with absolutely zero trade offs, and they don't want to have to work for it either. It's just what the Armour sets are supposed to do apparently; or at least if you listen to anyone talking about improving Dark Armour it is. 

 

Because a few sets started out covering pretty much all bases, and gradually all the rough edges to a lot of sets was shaved off, rounded and polished into a whole pile of functionally identical, interchangeable 9 powers per set. Even the T9s are mostly carbon copies of one another, despite being for completely different Archetype rolls, from Issue 0. And it continued unabated in Issue 6, and on and on... until Bio and Rad. Those two are anomalies I was going to explore in a theoretical follow up to this thread.

 

You have to ask yourself; what did I mean when I used a sub-sub-title simply saying "Godlings"?

 

2 hours ago, Naraka said:

It's a pretty nihilistic perspective but it's true.  Next time you discuss changes about IOs and rebalancing them, are you on the side that wants to keep certain bonuses like def or rech the same?  

 

But if we're talking more pie-in-the-sky here, why do the tier 9s have to function the same for each AT?  Why can't 1 of the ATs (such as Tankers) get a much more milder buff (like shaved down to 10% of the buff they get now) but also apply that buff to teammates?  Making them a semi-team support....while Brutes get a more offensively fueled toggle that eats away at their fury?

 

I guess, to me, these blanket suggestions, while somewhat "easier" to grasp and apply, only goes in so far as to be easy to implement but extremely difficult to balance.  It'd be easier to just re-asses the power from the ground up, to include the AT and their role on a team.

Thing is, you don't even need to ask that question of me @Naraka. You and everyone else are easily able to extrapolate what I think on IO set bonuses, global recharge, damage procs, and anything else to do with it. Even if I hadn't been vocal about them in the past (which I have), you could probably make at least an educated guess, just from the tonality and apparent goals I have with trying to make T9s something interesting and dynamic. One does not do these things if one is happy with the way things are, no?

 

IO set bonus stacking is out of control. Damage Procs are harmful to build diversity. Global Recharge is a mistake.

 

There's absolutely no reason that the T9s couldn't be imagined as individual bespoke powers that are not only very different, set-to-set, but also very different Archetype-to-Archetype, that played to the individual systems available to each set, and each Archetype... other than it is a lot of work to undertake, and that it would be absolutely savaged on these forums if it were to be suggested. You don't even have to take my word for that. You just have to have eyes and have read a handful of threads in this sub-forum that propose that very topic.

 

As I said, a total rework of the T9s would be lovely, but it wouldn't really change anything to do with set efficiency, since the T9s are part of a sub-set of powersets that don't need any more things to make them work. Anything you add to them is irrelevant anyway, as we've already agreed on, so why not make them a bit of dumb fun?! I'm always willing to spitball ideas however. Hit me up on the Discord, or post a workshop thread here if you feel so inclined. 

 

I just thought the idea was fun. If properly tuned, it could probably be made to work, as could be said of lots of different ideas. But this was my stab at trying to add something of worth to the community and of course, something that would be fun for me personally. And it seems there is some support for the idea on its own merit, despite my lack of fine detail on the balance front. It sounds like a fun idea, right? That's all I wanted to achieve with this thread.

 

I like "what ifs". It's a one in a million chance for any idea from this forum to actually gain traction and become a grassroots movement. And even then, that's no guarantee of changes. But maybe my idea made someone smile and have a little "what if" fantasy in their head for just a little bit before it was exposed for the trash idea it so clearly is.

 

Wanna talk about more trash ideas to pass the time though?

😁

Edited May 21, 2020 by Nanolathe
Clarification

[xl8]

On 5/20/2020 at 1:42 PM, Galaxy Brain said:

unique perks per set.

This. Let the combination experimentation begin!