Why are we still bothering with PPM (when we already have Doublehit)?

[Replacement]

This may be an open-and-shut discussion; I'm very open to having my mind changed, here.

 

Doublehit tl;dr: Doublehit works by fetching the recharge of a power, and plugging that into the standard (benchmark) damage formula, and multiplied by a coefficient to get you a percentage. (77%, in the case of DoubleHit).

 

@Hopeling does a great job of outlining the mechanics in this thread, which is highly suggested reading:

 

My understanding of why PPM rose in the first place: If a power has a 20% chance to proc X damage... attacking more often means more 20% dice rolls = more damage.  PPM weights powers with longer cooldowns towards a similar end result.

 

>>>This part is the actual suggestion---

The Doublehit mechanism already does this (and so does, I believe, Envenomed blades, et al).  Why not go back to static percentages (that can be understood by actual humans in-game without consulting spreadsheets!), and instead replace the damage components with scaled damage?

 

Use Doublehit's mechanism, with a coefficient that matches our target DPS.  The end result should be that faster powers trigger more frequently, but for lower damage.

------------------<<<

 

The flaws with this plan:

• I have no idea what numbers all of these enhancements should be converted to.  Do you?  Seriously, is this something we know?  It seems to me even if we recover the old %s, we still don't know what the target DPS addition from it should be.  This baseline would need decided, and then it'd be pretty easy to scale things to match that mark.
• I have no idea what to do with "chance for Build Up" and such.  CoH seems to struggle with dynamically altering duration lengths, or else I'd say that would be the best way to go for those sorts of effects.  Failing that, PPM may still remain for non-damage/heal procs.

 

Again: I put this in Suggestions because it seems so much simpler - not just for a player to understand, but for a dev to balance performance.  BUT, I acknowledge this is a half-cocked thought and I could be overlooking glaring issues that kill this idea on arrival.  I'm all ears.

 

 

Edited June 25, 2020 by Replacement
Title and content edits to make it more clear what I'm suggesting

[Zeraphia]

11 minutes ago, Replacement said:

My understanding of why PPM rose in the first place: If a power has a 20% chance to proc X damage... attacking more often means more 20% dice rolls = more damage.  PPM weights powers with longer cooldowns towards a similar end result.

You answered your own question.

 

No seriously, you really did. That's exactly why it was put into place. When you have a power that is on say like a 240s base recharge, and it only has a 20% chance to proc the particular effect, why would you ever slot procs in these powers? It would be far too unreliable. Also, it makes powers that have multiple ticks and chances to fire that are static like Rain of Fire / Sleet possibly overpowered by being a fixed % on a lot of its ticks.

 

Further, it gives further advantage to high DPAS sets (Fire Blast) because of what you just said, fire more often, more procs. The PPM system imo is much better overall and fairer than the old system.

 

Also, many builds have already been made specifically designed with PPM procs in mind. It would be a huge nerf to several characters (especially Controllers/Doms).

Edited June 25, 2020 by Zeraphia

[Replacement]

21 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

You answered your own question.

 

No seriously, you really did. That's exactly why it was put into place. When you have a power that is on say like a 240s base recharge, and it only has a 20% chance to proc the particular effect, why would you ever slot procs in these powers? It would be far too unreliable. Also, it makes powers that have multiple ticks and chances to fire that are static like Rain of Fire / Sleet possibly overpowered by being a fixed % on a lot of its ticks.

 

Further, it gives further advantage to high DPAS sets (Fire Blast) because of what you just said, fire more often, more procs. The PPM system imo is much better overall and fairer than the old system.

 

Also, many builds have already been made specifically designed with PPM procs in mind. It would be a huge nerf to several characters (especially Controllers/Doms).

Yes, I follow.  You seem to think I'm advocating a return to the old system.  I am not.

 

More procs = more damage because the proc always processes for the same amount of damage.

 

My suggestion is changing the proc's damage dynamically based on power's recharge.  We already have the code for this: it's called Doublehit. 

 

EDIT: Specific to proccing controllers: since the damage is based on recharge ("how much this power would do if it were an attack power"), it would automatically give, proportionately, more damage to a Control attack than it would a Blast.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Replacement

[Replacement]

Topic edited and clarified to make it more clear what I am suggesting.  I don't want a return to the old world; I want to make more use of the more advanced code that entered the game late in its natural life.

[Zeraphia]

10 minutes ago, Replacement said:

Yes, I follow.  You seem to think I'm advocating a return to the old system.  I am not.

 

More procs = more damage because the proc always processes for the same amount of damage.

 

My suggestion is changing the proc's damage dynamically based on power's recharge.  We already have the code for this: it's called Doublehit. 

 

EDIT: Specific to proccing controllers: since the damage is based on recharge ("how much this power would do if it were an attack power"), it would automatically give, proportionately, more damage to a Control attack than it would a Blast.

I see, I guess I misinterpreted the question as "why do we still have it now" not "we should implement this suggestion." I think there are a lot of specific variables to this idea, particularly the balancing on many key powers and it would result in a huge change to many characters possibly in terms of the effectiveness of certain procs (sounds like a really "duh" statement). But it may be a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" situation where the system works functionally fine right now even if it isn't perfect, but there are a multitude of bugs right now and other suggestions that are taking precedent over refining this system (I'm not at all saying your suggestion isn't valid, I'm saying that might be why it isn't implemented right now.)

Edited June 25, 2020 by Zeraphia

[Bopper]

Still waking up...so I did not fully dive into the thread, so this is possibly already mentioned. But Double-Hit uses PPM. So although yes, the damage can scale, the PPM is still there. Double-Hit implementation just changes the game, but it will still be exploitable. Epics would be the big beneficiary as their damage from the higher base recharge is quite excessive. Being able to still get those to proc at 90% while giving them increased proc damage is probably not the route the devs want to go with.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Bopper

[Replacement]

2 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

I see, I guess I misinterpreted the question as "why do we still have it now" not "we should implement this suggestion." I think there are a lot of specific variables to this idea, particularly the balancing on many key powers and it would result in a huge change to many characters possibly in terms of the effectiveness of certain procs (sounds like a really "duh" statement). But it may be a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" situation where the system works functionally fine right now even if it isn't perfect, but there are a multitude of bugs right now and other suggestions that are taking precedent over refining this system (I'm not at all saying your suggestion isn't valid, I'm saying that why it may not be implemented right now.)

Yeah, thanks, your first post really highlighted how unclear my OP was.

 

About "don't fix what ain't broke" - well, there's 2 issues with that.

 

The first is that the "Everything is PPM" is an i24 change, to my understanding.  It never touched the live servers en masse (only the special enhancements had it; not everything).

 

The second is, my understanding was there's a general consensus that PPM is currently quite broken.  It's a ridiculously large amount of power that locked behind a high level of inaccessibility (spreadsheet optimization).  Particularly, the intentional decision to omit global recharge from the PPM formula makes the most powerful stat in the game even more an overshadowing force (and reinforces the "noob" inaccessibility of having Recharge enhancements actually weaken your procs, which the game makes zero effort to warn you about).

 

Either way, I appreciate the input even if you don't agree it's worth the price of admission.  

[Bopper]

that being said, AoEs would get penalized quite a bit by incorporating the Double-Hit formula (it uses actual Area Factor, not PPM's dampened version), so that will help with some of the buzzsawing we're seeing in AoEs.

[Replacement]

16 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Still waking up...so I did not fully dive into the thread, so this is possibly already mentioned. But Double-Hit uses PPM. So although yes, the damage can scale, the PPM is still there. Double-Hit implementation just changes the game, but it will still be exploitable. Epics would be the big beneficiary as their damage from the higher base recharge is quite excessive. Being able to still get those to proc at 90% while giving them increased proc damage is probably not the route the devs want to go with.

Thanks, I had forgotten about this bit, which had occurred to me while reading Hopeling's guide.  Yes, there is a PPM to Doublehit, but that's more a part of the specific implementation of that power.  You would simply replace that part with your desired % chance like the Enhancements of Yore.

 

As for Epics with their doubled recharge - you're right, this would certainly require work.  If there was something flagged in those powers (e.g. if they were programmed as normal but with a +100% recharge penalty added into the power) it would be fine.  But they were implemented by hand, with the dev simply understanding they need to add double value (or "subtract 5, then double, then add the 5 back" in the case of Knockout Blow).

 

The other thing @Zeraphia mentioned was carpet effects -- I don't think this would be problem except there's gotta be truncation floor somewhere.  I'm concerned that a bunch of hits for 1 would cause a trillion little procs that a) will devour a mapserver and b) will either get rounded down to nothing or rounded up to significantly higher-than-anticipated performance.

 

This doesn't kill the idea for me yet, but any required special-casing for Epics and DoT-patches are definite and valid Cons.

 

EDIT: yeah, I don't see any incidental hit to AoE as a bad thing.  They would still function powerfully with weaker procs - they would simply return to their originally-intended scaling.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Replacement

[marcussmythe]

Im going to have to vote against ‘Procs are Broken’

 

Or more to the point, maybe they are - but they are probably less broken (and in the opposite direction) of the rest of the Invention System.

 

Invention Sets handed softcap defenses, once the halcyon of defense based survival sets, to essentially -everyone-, mostly via massive set bonuses, or sometimes by cutting the recharge on things that never should have been recharging that fast.  Ever hear ‘why play X, when Y can be if not -as- tough, at least equally tough/tough enough to be unkillable, while dealing more damage by the bucket‘?  Inventions are why.

 

Procmongering gives back with the other hand.  You lose set bonuses, and gain damage.  This is a major leg up to ATs that dont push a lot of damage, but already have solid survival tools built in (Controllers, Defenders, Tanks all leap to mind) - and restore some of the parity that is lost when blasters are just high damage sentinels (cause their tough enough) and when scrappers have enough survival (and DPS!) to solo Tinpex.

 

Now; if you think Defenders should be buffbots with no real secondary and tanks should be grunting lumps so other people can be superstars - then yes, procs are broken.

[Apparition]

4 minutes ago, marcussmythe said:

Im going to have to vote against ‘Procs are Broken’

 

Or more to the point, maybe they are - but they are probably less broken (and in the opposite direction) of the rest of the Invention System.

 

Invention Sets handed softcap defenses, once the halcyon of defense based survival sets, to essentially -everyone-, mostly via massive set bonuses, or sometimes by cutting the recharge on things that never should have been recharging that fast.  Ever hear ‘why play X, when Y can be if not -as- tough, at least equally tough/tough enough to be unkillable, while dealing more damage by the bucket‘?  Inventions are why.

 

Procmongering gives back with the other hand.  You lose set bonuses, and gain damage.  This is a major leg up to ATs that dont push a lot of damage, but already have solid survival tools built in (Controllers, Defenders, Tanks all leap to mind) - and restore some of the parity that is lost when blasters are just high damage sentinels (cause their tough enough) and when scrappers have enough survival (and DPS!) to solo Tinpex.

 

Now; if you think Defenders should be buffbots with no real secondary and tanks should be grunting lumps so other people can be superstars - then yes, procs are broken.

Damage procs are broken because they allow Defenders to out-support, out-defense, and out-damage Corruptors with few exceptions.

[Bopper]

7 minutes ago, marcussmythe said:

 

Or more to the point, maybe they are - but they are probably less broken (and in the opposite direction) of the rest of the Invention System.

This is mostly my sentiment as well... There are obvious huge benefits that come with going for proc-monster builds. But the benefits don't seem any more so than what set bonuses in the game can already do, especially with all the new sets like ATOs and Winter that just throw tons of survivability at you. I view it all as trade space. You want to do proc damage? It will cost you survival. You want survival? It will cost you proc damage. If we get rid of one, everyone is just gonna gravitate to the other. 

[marcussmythe]

Winter Sets are silly, and amusingly slanted in their coverage.  I dearly wish there was a 'Summer' set which held the same obsession with E/N resist and defense.  For that matter, maybe a Spring set that gave +DAM in amounts that actually MATTER or something in a 'basically make you immune to Debuffs' Fall line (the fact that all endgame mobs make their bones by simply turning your character off as soon as you draw aggro annoys me to no end).

 

I think its still somewhat slanted trade space - I've not run it side by side, but it would be amusing to compare the damage output of an incarnate softcapped War Mace/SR Scrapper (who pays a price to get to incarnate softcap) vs. the damage output of an incarnate softcapped SR/Warmace Tank (which gets incarnate softcap fairly easily, and thus can lean on procs to try to chase the scrapeprs damage).

 

That would actually be a very interesting examination - the tank will still be tougher at any given level of def (due to greater HP, etc), but it would give us a baseline of comparison.  Anyone good and quick with builds willing to look at it?

[Bopper]

5 minutes ago, marcussmythe said:

I've not run it side by side, but it would be amusing to compare the damage output of an incarnate softcapped War Mace/SR Scrapper (who pays a price to get to incarnate softcap) vs. the damage output of an incarnate softcapped SR/Warmace Tank (which gets incarnate softcap fairly easily, and thus can lean on procs to try to chase the scrapeprs damage).

 

That would actually be a very interesting examination - the tank will still be tougher at any given level of def (due to greater HP, etc), but it would give us a baseline of comparison.  Anyone good and quick with builds willing to look at it?

Given the Scrapper ATO, and the higher base damage, the Scrapper should easily win out. But yeah, it would be an interesting examination.

[Leo_G]

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

You answered your own question.

 

No seriously, you really did. That's exactly why it was put into place. When you have a power that is on say like a 240s base recharge, and it only has a 20% chance to proc the particular effect, why would you ever slot procs in these powers? It would be far too unreliable. Also, it makes powers that have multiple ticks and chances to fire that are static like Rain of Fire / Sleet possibly overpowered by being a fixed % on a lot of its ticks.

 

Further, it gives further advantage to high DPAS sets (Fire Blast) because of what you just said, fire more often, more procs. The PPM system imo is much better overall and fairer than the old system.

 

Also, many builds have already been made specifically designed with PPM procs in mind. It would be a huge nerf to several characters (especially Controllers/Doms).

I would put a 20% proc in a long rech power... If the resulting damage was like a crit for a good /big chunk of damage. 

 

Personally speaking, I think the issue with procs is their all out nothing approach. The PPM system favors high rech which isn't too strong... Until you put 4+ procs into a power. No, instead, they should have mixed the mechanics so that some procs were % based, some were PPM based, some were condition based and some are just baseline additional (for your debuff procs) so that it wouldn't be so simple to load a power up with procs like Savage melee's tier 9. If it were mixed so only 1 of the slottable proc was PPM and the other 2 were % based while another had something else, the optimal choice might be to only slot 2 procs. It would be a nerf to that power but when loading up on procs is better than just the slotted power, you know you messed up somewhere. 

[marcussmythe]

4 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Given the Scrapper ATO, and the higher base damage, the Scrapper should easily win out. But yeah, it would be an interesting examination.

And if the Scrapper can match the tanks survival (at least as far as 'good enough to solo Incarnate Trials'), while doing more damage than an equally survivable tank, despite the fact that the tank is pouring its extra headroom into more damage output...

 

Then yes, Virginia, there IS a balance problem.  But its not with procs or defensive powersets.

 

(Caveat- I like exemplar play, and the SR tank will still be a demigod in early task forces, where the SR scrapper is largely reduced to being a melee only blaster - and so I'm not giving up on the heavier end of the spectrum.  But boy, howdy, the endgame is utterly whacked by Sets and Incarnates...)

[marcussmythe]

7 minutes ago, Leo_G said:

I would put a 20% proc in a long rech power... If the resulting damage was like a crit for a good /big chunk of damage. 

 

Personally speaking, I think the issue with procs is their all out nothing approach. The PPM system favors high rech which isn't too strong... Until you put 4+ procs into a power. No, instead, they should have mixed the mechanics so that some procs were % based, some were PPM based, some were condition based and some are just baseline additional (for your debuff procs) so that it wouldn't be so simple to load a power up with procs like Savage melee's tier 9. If it were mixed so only 1 of the slottable proc was PPM and the other 2 were % based while another had something else, the optimal choice might be to only slot 2 procs. It would be a nerf to that power but when loading up on procs is better than just the slotted power, you know you messed up somewhere. 

Slotting the power with a set is absolutely better if you want 10% Recharge and 6% Resist to Psy/Toxic and so on and so on and so on.  Its just not better for raw damage, and you make your choices and take your chances.

[Leo_G]

4 minutes ago, marcussmythe said:

Slotting the power with a set is absolutely better if you want 10% Recharge and 6% Resist to Psy/Toxic and so on and so on and so on.  Its just not better for raw damage, and you make your choices and take your chances.

I'm guessing that's in response to my first paragraph? Yeah, it'd be a choice in build direction. Specifically for me, I just like random goodies like crits so I slotted procs in my build on live before PPM as well. 

Edited June 25, 2020 by Leo_G

[Bopper]

2 minutes ago, marcussmythe said:

match the tanks survival

Aside from the higher resistance (assuming tank has Tough, Tanker ATO) and the higher HP. But yes, SR scrapper hitting iCap will likely be survivable enough. But...I'm going off track with the topic. I mentioned my thoughts, but I'm probably not adding anything else to the conversation at the moment. Sorry @Replacement if I distracted from the topic too much.

[marcussmythe]

Sorry to belabor the point and distract.  TLDR:  Please leave PPM effects as they are, for various reasons outlined above.  Thank you.

[nihilii]

2 hours ago, marcussmythe said:

Im going to have to vote against ‘Procs are Broken’

Aye. "Poorly explained" maybe.

Instead of breaking procs, why not improve the UI? Once the proc is slotted in a power, I'd love to be able to see % chance to proc X damage directly ingame.

[Replacement]

3 hours ago, marcussmythe said:

Im going to have to vote against ‘Procs are Broken’

 

Or more to the point, maybe they are - but they are probably less broken (and in the opposite direction) of the rest of the Invention System.

 

Invention Sets handed softcap defenses, once the halcyon of defense based survival sets, to essentially -everyone-, mostly via massive set bonuses, or sometimes by cutting the recharge on things that never should have been recharging that fast.  Ever hear ‘why play X, when Y can be if not -as- tough, at least equally tough/tough enough to be unkillable, while dealing more damage by the bucket‘?  Inventions are why.

 

Procmongering gives back with the other hand.  You lose set bonuses, and gain damage.  This is a major leg up to ATs that dont push a lot of damage, but already have solid survival tools built in (Controllers, Defenders, Tanks all leap to mind) - and restore some of the parity that is lost when blasters are just high damage sentinels (cause their tough enough) and when scrappers have enough survival (and DPS!) to solo Tinpex.

 

Now; if you think Defenders should be buffbots with no real secondary and tanks should be grunting lumps so other people can be superstars - then yes, procs are broken.

Here's something to consider:

 

None of the advantages you outlined here go away under my proposed rework.

 

• IO Bonuses tend towards defensive and procs skew back to offense? unchanged. It's a damage proc that aims to add roughly as much DPS as they are "supposed" to currently.
• Procs help out lower damage ATs more? Unchanged - Doublehit ignores AT modifiers.
• Procs help recover offense for sets that lack attacks? Since the Doublehit mechanism only cares about the power's recharge, Controls and power pool attacks and even MM attacks will all proc for the same amount of damage DPS. So... Unchanged.

I acknowledge they're fulfilling a role.  The problem is that it seems like a Rube Goldbergian implementation.

Edited June 25, 2020 by Replacement

[marcussmythe]

1 hour ago, Replacement said:

Here's something to consider:

 

None of the advantages you outlined here go away under my proposed rework.

 

• IO Bonuses tend towards defensive and procs skew back to offense? unchanged. It's a damage proc that aims to add roughly as much DPS as they are "supposed" to currently.
• Procs help out lower damage ATs more? Unchanged - Doublehit ignores AT modifiers.
• Procs help recover offense for sets that lack attacks? Since the Doublehit mechanism only cares about the power's recharge, Controls and power pool attacks and even MM attacks will all proc for the same amount of damage DPS. So... Unchanged.

I acknowledge they're fulfilling a role.  The problem is that it seems like a Rube Goldbergian implementation.

A fair point.  Even if we do not go with your implementation, I agree that they could be MUCH less obtuse to the reader.  Whilst I enjoy playing 'Can I drop a Dam/End/Rchg for a Dam/Rchg so I shave a .1 second for a seamless rotation without impacting proc %s... most people do not, and should not have to do so.

[Razor Cure]

I will leave questions on which system works better to the number crunches, but to me..the current PPM system just seems to overly reward 'crazy' or non standard slotting. I totally get that the old 20% chance per proc was unfair to low rech powers, and great on fast ones. But the PPM system seems to be the opposite. You can take a 'long' (I forget teh exact value, but MacSkull had a great thread about PPM rates and recharges), slap a ton of procs in it, and they basically all get a 70% or higher (may not have actually been 70, but it was MORE than 20%) to go off.

This is even worse (that it, better for a player) if you build for rech (which, is very easy and common), and more so with +rech alphas and Ageless (super super common).

 

Case in Point..Savage Melee.

I tried it on my very first toon coming back, and found Hemorage and SLeap to be..well..shite. Low damage, and silly mechanics (the damage vs distance) almost cripple the powers. Then I found a great thread about proccing SM. It is basically doing both those attacks with a 53% damage purple IO, and procs.

ANd it is INSANE. Just stupidly awesome. All those procs go off almost every time, and turn less than average powers into basically broken ones (I think teh difference seems so great, since both powers are very lacking out of teh box).

Other examples include Epic Holds (for blasters) slotted with FIVE procs. Is an epic hold really really meant to do 5 lots of proc damage, with like a 90% chance?

Or the dark melee changes, and Dark COnsumption becoming a mini nuke,.

 

So yeah..PPM totally made procs worth it in long duration powers..and exploits global rech (and minimal power rech slotting) to a silly degree.

 

[SwitchFade]

So, what you're asking for is a @Replacement?