So...what's this I hear about changes to TW?

[Eva Destruction]

31 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

Remember that the game is still balanced around SO builds, not what you can do with IO sets and specials.

Well then Bio can have its defensive capabilities boosted to compensate.

 

An SO TW build will have long recharge times and insane end costs.  Heraclea is right that it's painful when exemped down too far, and probably even more so when you don't have a bunch of global recharge set bonuses.

[Coyotedancer]

I have a Titan/Bio scrap myself. I know how the combination handles...

 

I'm just reminding, as usual, that we can't really base discussions of how over- or under-powered a set may be on how they function under the influence of IOs.

 

 

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[Bill Z Bubba]

I don't slot SOs. Or DOs. Or TOs. At 32 I get lvl 35 basic IOs or start slotting sets. How can the game still be considered "balanced" around something that isn't used?

 

Even if you go with the argument that most are actually playing the first 32 levels and not doing the two PL me fast lowbie trials how can we ignore the fact that many that ARE playing that content are leaning on lowbie sets? Or P2W buffs?

 

The game needs to be balanced around how it's actually played, not how we once played or wish it was played. We now have many posters stating that an AT's lack of mez protection is meaningless because it's easy to stay loaded up with the defensive amplifier. I'm logged on to a nature/water defender right now with it and she has 19 set IOs slotted... at lvl 23. The rest are lvl 25 basic IOs.

 

"The game is balanced around SOs" was something people discussed back when we had the OLD difficulty settings. It was stated when we discussed HO builds. It's no longer a belief that has relevance.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[Patti]

I would like to be able to play too, please.

[Coyotedancer]

6 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I don't slot SOs. Or DOs. Or TOs. At 32 I get lvl 35 basic IOs or start slotting sets. How can the game still be considered "balanced" around something that isn't used?

 

Even if you go with the argument that most are actually playing the first 32 levels and not doing the two PL me fast lowbie trials how can we ignore the fact that many that ARE playing that content are leaning on lowbie sets? Or P2W buffs?

 

The game needs to be balanced around how it's actually played, not how we once played or wish it was played. We now have many posters stating that an AT's lack of mez protection is meaningless because it's easy to stay loaded up with the defensive amplifier. I'm logged on to a nature/water defender right now with it and she has 19 set IOs slotted... at lvl 23. The rest are lvl 25 basic IOs.

 

"The game is balanced around SOs" was something people discussed back when we had the OLD difficulty settings. It was stated when we discussed HO builds. It's no longer a belief that has relevance.

 

You want that changed? Present your case to the devs. 

For the moment, "balanced around SOs" is still the game we're playing.

[Bill Z Bubba]

15 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

You want that changed? Present your case to the devs. 

For the moment, "balanced around SOs" is still the game we're playing.

 

Have the current devs stated so? I don't recall that post. Anything the old devs had to say on the topic became null and void as soon as the SSPS was set up by Leandro.

Edited June 7, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[Giovanni Valia]

TW nerf? Good. It's long overdue

[Coyotedancer]

5 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Have the current devs stated so? I don't recall that post. Anything the old devs had to say on the topic became null and void as soon as the SSPS was set up by Leandro.

 

Show me the link where the Homecoming devs have stated any change to that standard.  

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

Show me the link where the Homecoming devs have stated any change to that standard.  

And we both know neither of us have those quotes. They haven't been made. This is not NCSoft's City of Heroes. It's not Paragon's City of Heroes. It's not even Leandro's hidden for 6 years and tweaked to his liking CoH. This is Homecoming's. Old rules need not apply and in this case, absolutely shouldn't.

 

Balance should include the entire spectrum of the game and what it has to offer. It shouldn't ignore a vast portion of content simply because of some ancient and arbitrary statement.

[BasherBot]

18 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

And we both know neither of us have those quotes. They haven't been made. This is not NCSoft's City of Heroes. It's not Paragon's City of Heroes. It's not even Leandro's hidden for 6 years and tweaked to his liking CoH. This is Homecoming's. Old rules need not apply and in this case, absolutely shouldn't.

 

Balance should include the entire spectrum of the game and what it has to offer. It shouldn't ignore a vast portion of content simply because of some ancient and arbitrary statement.

I mean... if they were going to balance around TOs and DOs (apart of the vast portion of the game btw) then why are they planning on removing both origins all together in the next update?

[Chance Jackson]

15 hours ago, Heraclea said:

I have a TW/WP scrapper.  Didn't much take to the set.  I build full game characters that are just as happy on a Penny Yin as they are on Ms. Liberty.  The set is just painful when exemped down that far.   And I found Momentum difficult to manage, and again, clumsy and slow below max level. 

 

I think that TW is like Stone Armor.  It needs to excel at something because its inconveniences are so annoying. 

agreed

[nihilii]

16 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

"The game is balanced around SOs" was something people discussed back when we had the OLD difficulty settings. It was stated when we discussed HO builds. It's no longer a belief that has relevance.

Most people who defend "the game is balanced around SOs" don't use SOs themselves, anyway; or if they do, they certainly don't push it very far.

 

I use SOs occasionally. Many of the power feats one can do on IO builds are still replicable on SOs, simply because you've got an insp tray, temp powers and incarnates. You lose SOME performance, but it's not as dramatic as you might think.

I don't think people are being disingenuous. Just, as you say... We've all moved on to IOs a long time ago. The use for SOs tend to be restricted to the leveling process, if that. So, well-intentioned posters confuse their experience at level 20 for "SO balance". Whereas much of the performance difference they feel is a result of the difference between a level 20 and a level 50.

At lvl 50, a properly built TW/bio scrapper on SOs still performs better than most IOed out builds. Interestingly enough this is one of the many combos where a brute might be better on SOs (whereas the scrapper is definitely superior on IOs); but the scrapper would still be a power build.

 

(This is incidentally another problem with the "game is balanced around SOs": the brute vs scrapper power balance most definitely isn't right on SOs. Scrappers need their ATOs and even just sets to pull ahead as damage dealers. In the SO world, brutes deal MORE damage, because Fury lets them allocate more precious slots to accuracy, endred and recharge. Brutes vs scrappers is fine on IOs, but is broken on SOs!)

In the end, TW balance concerns just can't be handwaved through the SO balance argument. TW breaks the game as soon as level 1, when you pick Defensive Sweep and enjoy Divine Avalanche as a cone attack. This power alone can trivialize the lower levels (if there was even such a need). I rolled a SR/TW Tanker a year back, cranked the rep to x8 as soon as level 1 and never looked back.

Edited June 7, 2020 by nihilii

[nihilii]

3 hours ago, Chance Jackson said:

agreed

Balance by inconvenience is pretty bad. Some people don't mind Momentum at all and so they get their free cake and eat it too. Some of us dislike Momentum so we live through the pain to enjoy being overpowered. 😛

 

But there's another problem, even if you accept the argument TW needs to excel at something: TW excels at *everything* or close to it compared to other melee powersets, at least in pure performance metrics.

It has:

- best burst damage

- best ST DPS

- near best AoE DPS

- much of its AoE DPS can be dealt as a side effect of its ST DPS. TW is the best at this.

- best native -RES

- best +DEF, as strong as other options and tied to a cone attack whereas Divine Avalanche type powers are typically ST

- near best if not outright best IO/proc slotting options (Achilles Heel, Fury of the Gladiator, and generally high recharge powers giving high proc chances)

 

I don't think anyone is arguing TW performance should be strictly equal to a standard set with no special mechanic, given the need to manage Momentum. But TW performance probably shouldn't be twice as good as most other melee options.

 

Momentum is a can of worms and a half, too, because its very nature means you will have dramatically superior performance if you optimize around it. Jim Minmaxer running the FT -> RA -> CB -> FT -> AoE -> CB attack chain is on another planet as Joe Casual who's idea of efficient Momentum is popping Build Up then going through the higher damage attacks in succession, slowly tabbing through targets and moving at base run speed to them.

 

Don't get me wrong, Joe is still going to push out some impressive damage above normal powersets, because TW attacks are actually better than regular attacks on a power per power basis*. but likely, he'll feel like TW is "fast fast fast... slow, slow slow slow slow". Whereas for Jim, there's only one slow attack every 10 seconds. It makes for a much wider gap than traditional powersets.
 

*Extra emphasis on that: TW, without any Momentum, is actually a competitive powerset (if we assume Follow Through and Whirling Smash could be used, and give them, say, a 2 second animation). It even has better DPE overall.

[Nightmarer 2]

Hmmm, nerfing TW are they? Need to stash popcorn for that one...

 

[Troo]

'fixing'

[Substaticman]

While I think TW should be toned down, how come no one has complained about Fire completely roflstomping every blast set for years and years?  Unless all those videos and charts are wrong.

 

Most of the "secondary" utility those sets bring for so much lower DPS do not even seem useful in this state of the game, outside of Sonic on Defender and only in teams.

[ImpousVileTerror]

Probably because Fire doesn't do Knockdown, boost Defense, or have any other utility other than an 80% chance to interrupt enemy interruptible Powers.

Meanwhile, Titan has quite a mix of utility baked right in to its Proc-friendly AoE-heavy "roflstomping."

[Apparition]

Yep.  TW provides s lot of utility and does more damage than Fire Blast, and 30% more damage than the second highest melee damage power set.

[XaoGarrent]

47 minutes ago, Troo said:

'fixing'

I swear I didn't shoot that man in the head officer, I was just giving him a "cranial adjustment."

[Substaticman]

24 minutes ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

Probably because Fire doesn't do Knockdown, boost Defense, or have any other utility other than an 80% chance to interrupt enemy interruptible Powers.

Meanwhile, Titan has quite a mix of utility baked right in to its Proc-friendly AoE-heavy "roflstomping."

 

18 minutes ago, Apparition said:

Yep.  TW provides s lot of utility and does more damage than Fire Blast, and 30% more damage than the second highest melee damage power set.

Yeah I guess. I just wish blast ATs had as many as high dps options as melee ones do. While TW is far ahead, at least other stuff can be great too.

[ImpousVileTerror]

And I mean, plenty of people -have- complained about Fire.   Or, more to the point, that other Blast Sets don't quite feel useful in the current "endgame meta" where just pure, unrelenting damage is more helpful due to IO bonuses, et cetera.

But then we're dealing with quite a few strata of balance issues introduced years ago and compounded by later development.   There's no easy solution, either, since the players here are quite divided on what would be "good" and "healthy" for the game, so ultimately the only solutions remaining tend to be additions of more layers to the bedrock of code and content.

 

And honestly?   I'm pretty much okay with that.  I don't think we're really quite close enough to critical mass just yet.   Not that better future-proofing shouldn't be a part of all upcoming development, but as long as I see this game providing people with deep and enriching roleplay options, balance issues would need to be COMPLETELY off kilter to really make a permanent dent.

[Shred Monkey]

4 minutes ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

But then we're dealing with quite a few strata of balance issues introduced years ago and compounded by later development.   There's no easy solution, either, since the players here are quite divided on what would be "good" and "healthy" for the game, so ultimately the only solutions remaining tend to be additions of more layers to the bedrock of code and content.

Actually, it is easy.  You don't listen to the players.   Players will always be biased toward being more powerful.  To create balance, you look at the raw mathematical numbers (not popularity numbers) and tweak the outliers.  You set some basic rules of design and then follow them.  

 

Nobody who takes a step back and forms an unbiased assessment of TW's performance will conclude that it's evenly balanced.  You can't say the momentum mechanic is the price it pays for performance when it's the momentum mechanic is the bonus that gives it such extreme performance.  It breaks all the rules of design this game had in place and has no penalty.   

 

 

[Apparition]

50 minutes ago, Substaticman said:

 

Yeah I guess. I just wish blast ATs had as many as high dps options as melee ones do. While TW is far ahead, at least other stuff can be great too.

 

Beam Rifle does almost as much single target DPS as Fire, and does -regen, stun, -def, and -res.  Dual Pistols with Incendiary rounds loaded is #4 in single target DPS, and just behind Fire Blast in AoE DPS.  (Some people say Dual Pistols does low DPS.  Ignore them.  They either are not using Incendiary rounds, or they don't have an iota of a clue of what they're talking about.)  Assault Rifle actually does a lot of AoE DPS, as does Radiation Blast and Water Blast.

 

So, with the other blast sets, Dual Pistols does good single target DPS, and great AoE DPS.  There are other blast sets that do either great single target damage (Beam Rifle), or great AoE damage, (Assault Rifle, Radiation, Water).  Then there are your clunkers, (Dark, Energy, etc.), just like melee.

[XaoGarrent]

6 minutes ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

And I mean, plenty of people -have- complained about Fire.   Or, more to the point, that other Blast Sets don't quite feel useful in the current "endgame meta" where just pure, unrelenting damage is more helpful due to IO bonuses, et cetera.

This has always been a problem, even pre-IOs, it's just IOs make it more obvious. IO's aren't even the most drastic frame of reference here, though. More than anything it's the newer, better designed sets.

 

In the early days of the game, the "vision" certain devs had was so out of line with the actual game they were making, that many, many mistakes were made. I think the homogeneity both within certain sets, the schizophrenic design in others (Dark Armor I'm looking at you) and the insistence on trying to pigeonhole players took a toll on the game's design we're still picking through to this day. 

 

The majority of blast sets have secondary effects that not only is just copy and pasted across the whole set, whether it makes sense or not, but exists at values that only really matter on the likes of Defenders, who in turn have pretty universally bad damage. The fact that slotting -res and various other types of procs in blast powers matters more than what the powers themselves do says a lot about where things went wrong. 

 

The problem with Blast sets is that if they don't have great damage, they don't really have anything at all. Because what utility they do have is often mediocre at best, and becomes almost a non-factor once purple patch is factored in.

 

However, there *are* a few sets that compete with Fire Blast. I don't think most people have really dialed in how much they do, and exactly why they do. They're sets that came later, and they all have... Some special X factor to them. Maybe even a few. In much the way most melee sets do. Which is to say they use a design approach that is less homogeneous, and less conservative.

 

One of the biggest contenders is Water. And water is, amusingly, balanced more like a typical melee set than a blast set. It's chock full of utility, and it has good AoE. You have some soft and even hard-ish crowd control, a small health leech, slows, defense debuffs, etc. The only place it's lagging is in single target damage, but the set doesn't need to be good at everything when it's great at a few important things. After all, even if Dark Melee has some problems in the AoE department, I don't think anyone around here would say that it's a bad set, right?

 

Beam is also pretty impressive, though it's a more single target driven set. It features one of the only sources of meaningful regen debuff not just in a blast set, but outside of debuff sets altogether. There's a reason you see characters with Beam and regen nerfing secondarys (or some kind of other strong damage amp/debuff secondary) running around. High single target focus and a little bit of extra regen nerfing: It's just crying out to be used in a meta build designed for AV slaying.

 

I don't think it's simply the new sets and decisions made later in development. I think it's actually the inverse: Most blast sets were always pretty mediocre, and it wasn't until newer, better design came along that players had a clear enough vision to start asking hard questions.

[Luminara]

22 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I don't slot SOs. Or DOs. Or TOs. At 32 I get lvl 35 basic IOs or start slotting sets. How can the game still be considered "balanced" around something that isn't used?

 

Even if you go with the argument that most are actually playing the first 32 levels and not doing the two PL me fast lowbie trials how can we ignore the fact that many that ARE playing that content are leaning on lowbie sets? Or P2W buffs?

 

The game needs to be balanced around how it's actually played, not how we once played or wish it was played. We now have many posters stating that an AT's lack of mez protection is meaningless because it's easy to stay loaded up with the defensive amplifier. I'm logged on to a nature/water defender right now with it and she has 19 set IOs slotted... at lvl 23. The rest are lvl 25 basic IOs.

 

"The game is balanced around SOs" was something people discussed back when we had the OLD difficulty settings. It was stated when we discussed HO builds. It's no longer a belief that has relevance.

 

The game is balanced around the enhancement values SOs provide.  SOs are why a power may have a scalar value of 1, or an AT a melee scale value of 0.65.  SOs are the baseline.  If you change the baseline, you have to change everything else.  And if you change the baseline to IOs, you also have to recode the engine to compensate for the much wider variation of enhancement values.  IOs increase enhanced percentage as level increases.  IOs enhance up to 4 attributes, and collectively enhance a greater percentage than single-attribute enhancements of any variety.

 

Any attempt to use IOs as a baseline will have poor results.  Regardless of which IO level you determine to be optimal, once scalars are modified accordingly, you're going to have a lot of people either struggling to complete basic +0 content, or a lot of people blitzing end-game team and league content solo, at max difficulty.  There's simply too much variation in IO values.  As stated in the previous paragraph, the only way to make IOs work as a baseline is to recode the engine to account for the variability.

 

So, whether you use SOs or not, or the fact that there are better or worse enhancements available, is what is irrelevant.  The balance point isn't your play style or preferences, it's the fixed reference value provided by SOs.  That's never going to change, unless you're volunteering to rewrite part of the engine and rebalance everything in a way which works with highly variable IO values... in which case, I applaud your initiative, admire your determination, wish you nothing but success and eagerly await the result.  Off you pop.