Enhancement Diversification

[Tony Amore]

I always considered when the original devs instituted Enhancement Diversification a major mistake that caused a lot of heroes to go to other MMO's. Is ED still active or did the new bosses flush it down the toilet where it belongs?

 

Doc

[Sable Phoenix]

As much as most people hated ED when it happened, it's no longer really possible to argue that it was anything but good for the game in the long term.  Without it, content tended to be trivialized and invention sets couldn't really have been a thing.  Saying it drove people to other MMOs is pure supposition.

 

ED is still active and is embedded far enough under layers of code that it would most likely be impossible to remove at this point.  And that's a good thing.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

I agree with Sable. While ED might have been hated at the time in the long run I think it was good. The invention system lets you make much more powerful characters anyway so there no real need to reverse ED.

[Lockpick]

As much as most people hated ED when it happened, it's no longer really possible to argue that it was anything but good for the game in the long term.  Without it, content tended to be trivialized and invention sets couldn't really have been a thing.  Saying it drove people to other MMOs is pure supposition.

 

ED is still active and is embedded far enough under layers of code that it would most likely be impossible to remove at this point.  And that's a good thing.

 

I hated ED when it first came out, but agree that it was the right thing to do especially with IOs and set bonuses.  That being said, I do believe ED could be attributed to a significant population loss.  It would have been nice if the devs ha shared their roadmap as I think that a lot of people would have been more apt to stick around. 

[JnEricsonx]

The sting from ED went away when set IOs kicked in.  Who needs running 2-3 Acc in every offensive power when you had a global bonus of at least 1 Acc based on your sets?  Or bonus recharge, etc, etc.

 

[subbacultchas]

Whenever I see this type of post, I assume they never played past Issue 6 or 7. By the time later content and IO's hit, you realized how unlikely any of it would have been without ED. I don't want to go back to pre-ED days.

[Rylas]

...that caused a lot of heroes to go to other MMO's.

 

And yet, over a decade later, there's a surprisingly sizable player base for a game that's been officially shuttered. I can get how some people left when it first happened without the context of IOs and the Incarnate system. But at this point, anyone still griping about it can't see the forest for the trees. This game is miles ahead of where it would be if it never introduced ED.

[Pixie_Knight]

I'll admit, when ED was first announced I was among those who were up in arms about it. My main was a claw/SR scrapper and Defense was my lifeblood. My attack chain consisted of Swipe, Strike, and Slash. And I didn't pick up Slash until level 30. Yes, this was back when Swipe was a series of 6-8 swings and Strike was a baseball pitch style windup before punching. I didn't have any other attacks because to be honest every slot was being devoted to defense. My defensive toggles were six slotted, as were the +def passives. And I needed all of that to survive, especially against mobs which could hit you with def debuffs. Cascading defense failure was a thing, and the only solution was to have such high defense that the debuffs couldn't land. I thought ED would make my character entirely unplayable, and I was quite vocal about my discontent. Then the patch went live, we got our free respec, and I grudgingly dropped my slots down to3 in passives and 4 in toggles or attacks. Suddenly I had the extra slots that would allow me to have more attacks, so during the respec I grabbed another attack or two at the expense of delaying Stamina a bit longer.

 

And you know what? It wasn't anywhere near as bad as I feared it would be. ED didn't come in a vacuum after all. Along side it were some tweaks to how ACC and Defense worked. Sure I got hit a little more often, but no where near as much as I thought I would. And sure my attacks were doing about half the damage. But I had a full attack chain and some stronger attacks, so fights were actually shorter. Cascading Defense Failure was still a thing, but those were the same mobs I had difficulty with before, so there wasn't any real difference. As such, I'd say that ED did exactly what was intended. It allowed more and varied builds rather then everyone having the exact same cookie cutter build. The addition of IOs later on only made things better still. As did adding def debuff resistance to Ice Armor and Super Reflexes.

[_NOPE_]

As much as most people hated ED when it happened, it's no longer really possible to argue that it was anything but good for the game in the long term.  Without it, content tended to be trivialized and invention sets couldn't really have been a thing.  Saying it drove people to other MMOs is pure supposition.

 

ED is still active and is embedded far enough under layers of code that it would most likely be impossible to remove at this point.  And that's a good thing.

[Trickshooter]

ED was a shock at first, but ultimately was necessary for the game to really go anywhere. The game was a year and a half in to it's life and players had already peaked. The only real option for character growth pre-ED was just enhancements that were stronger than Hami-Os, which would mean another raid that was tougher than Hamidon, which you'd probably need Hami-Os to do. Then once we all had those, they'd just start the process all over again, and then again, and then again.

 

Instead, we got ED, which at the time sucked, sure. It was on the heels of the Global Defense Reduction from the previous issue, too, which certainly didn't help.

 

BUT... this combination made players step back and see the value of other enhancements. And when Inventions came around, we were able to see the value in things like Global Recharge bonuses or the Defense and Resistance bonuses, which pre-ED/pre-GDR, we would have been like "3% Defense!? Useless!"

[Atlas_Carter]

Everyone's looking through rose colored glasses here, so I'll say it:  it was a terrible change, it ruined a lot of fun in the game and quite frankly, that was Jack Emmert's MO.  You played the game HIS way or not at all.  It wasn't necessary, it was cruel and it was petty, and it made an already grindy game a horrible slog with lots of downtime (if you were lucky) or lots of deaths and debt accrual (if you weren't.)

 

Thankfully, they brought in Invention Origins that were actually diverse enhancements.  The game is now corrected, despite emmert's best efforts to force people to play HIS way.

 

ED was not a good thing, but its sting has been rendered mostly toothless.  Just... hope you got a lot of INF. 

 

 

[Generator]

Everyone's looking through rose colored glasses here, so I'll say it:  it was a terrible change, it ruined a lot of fun in the game and quite frankly, that was Jack Emmert's MO.  You played the game HIS way or not at all.  It wasn't necessary, it was cruel and it was petty, and it made an already grindy game a horrible slog with lots of downtime (if you were lucky) or lots of deaths and debt accrual (if you weren't.)

 

Thankfully, they brought in Invention Origins that were actually diverse enhancements.  The game is now corrected, despite emmert's best efforts to force people to play HIS way.

 

ED was not a good thing, but its sting has been rendered mostly toothless.  Just... hope you got a lot of INF.

 

Good god, get over it.

[Pixie_Knight]

I think you're overstating how bad it was.

 

Yes, the global defense reduction was perceived to be bad. I was among the ones who raged against it. In the wake of that I went from 3 slotting defense enhancements to six slotting them to get the same (perceived) benefit. What's overlooked is that while defense was lowered, so was enemy to-hit. Instead of needing to hit 95% defense or 95% to-hit debuff to floor enemy chance to hit, now you just needed to hit 45% defense or to-hit debuff.

 

In the wake of the Global Defense Reduction patch everyone with a defense based build had respec'd to a build with maximized defense slotting, even if they hadn't considered it necessary before the patch. We didn't pay attention to how the other changes affected the way defense works. We just panicked and raged. ED again made us rage, but we adjusted. And many of us then realized that wait, we didn't need as much +defense as we'd been thinking we did. Our Defense based characters were still just as survivable as they had been previously. Possibly more so now since we could afford the slots to run more offensive powers, thus defeat enemies quicker. Instead of feeling obligated to 5 slot damage into an offensive power, we could experiment. Controllers could afford to add some damage to their holds and immobilizes instead of just hold duration and accuracy. Hell, I experimented with adding knockback enhancements to a couple Claws attacks to give myself a bit more soft control during difficult fights.

[MunkiLord]

Enhancement Diversification was the single best thing that happened to this game, and it's not even close as far as I'm concerned.

[JnEricsonx]

You remember the raging over Energy Transfers animation change?  I admit, that kinda sucked.

[Grimm001]

ED is cancer.

 

Some powers only accept one type of enhancement (especially defensive powers tanks/melee rely on). ED nerfed these powers into oblivion, and ED was something that originally made me quit playing and move on to another game due to nobody wanting me in a team anymore. I got tired of being punished for having powers I needed to survive that only used one enhancement type.

 

If we get punished for single type powers, why allow us to 6 slot them in the first place? Meanwhile, multi enhancement powers can still diversify and be useful with 6 full slots.

 

ED also led to a lot of tanks being all but useless and having trouble finding teams in the lower to mid levels of the game. As a SS/INV tank back in the day, ED sucked. Before ED, I could get in teams all day long and my SG was always happy to have me tank because I got the job done. After ED, teams didn't need me because the big bug Kheldians could do a better job and I couldn't take the hits anymore. 

 

If they ever find a way to get rid of it, I won't miss it. I didn't like my defense potential being nerfed just because the developers decided to dial back returns on single enhancement abilities. If the devs allow me to 6 slot a damage resist power that only takes damage resist enhancements, I want the numbers I should be getting after investing the slots and the money into them.

 

Any tank that isn't maximizing their defense potential isn't doing their job, and ED made it harder to do that job.

 

I got tired of logging in just to sit on the yellow line looking for teams that didn't need me, so I canceled my sub and quit playing.

 

This time around with Homecoming, I made a point to not main a tank just in case ED was still in play. If I want to play rather than sit on the sidelines or solo, I log in a healer.

 

I'm glad that you guys like Enhancement Diversification, but it never did me any favors back in the day, and I absolutely hate the very thought of it.

 

 

[MunkiLord]

ED is cancer.

 

Some powers only accept one type of enhancement (especially defensive powers tanks/melee rely on). ED nerfed these powers into oblivion, and ED was something that originally made me quit playing and move on to another game due to nobody wanting me in a team anymore. I got tired of being punished for having powers I needed to survive that only used one enhancement type.

 

If we get punished for single type powers, why allow us to 6 slot them in the first place? Meanwhile, multi enhancement powers can still diversify and be useful with 6 full slots.

 

ED also led to a lot of tanks being all but useless and having trouble finding teams in the lower to mid levels of the game. As a SS/INV tank back in the day, ED sucked. Before ED, I could get in teams all day long and my SG was always happy to have me tank because I got the job done. After ED, teams didn't need me because the big bug Kheldians could do a better job and I couldn't take the hits anymore. 

 

If they ever find a way to get rid of it, I won't miss it. I didn't like my defense potential being nerfed just because the developers decided to dial back returns on single enhancement abilities. If the devs allow me to 6 slot a damage resist power that only takes damage resist enhancements, I want the numbers I should be getting after investing the slots and the money into them.

 

Any tank that isn't maximizing their defense potential isn't doing their job, and ED made it harder to do that job.

 

I got tired of logging in just to sit on the yellow line looking for teams that didn't need me, so I canceled my sub and quit playing.

 

This time around with Homecoming, I made a point to not main a tank just in case ED was still in play. If I want to play rather than sit on the sidelines or solo, I log in a healer.

 

I'm glad that you guys like Enhancement Diversification, but it never did me any favors back in the day, and I absolutely hate the very thought of it.

 

Load of crap. IO sets addressed every single thing you mentioned here. Also, assuming there was a decent population on your server, teams are not difficult to find. If server population was an issue, Freedom was the answer. Or start a team yourself. ED never went away, it never will, and the game is absolutely better for it. Make a tank, teams will take you. Or a Scrapper, or Blaster, or Dominator, or Stalker, or anything. Doesn't matter.

 

ED was the best thing to ever happen to City of Heroes.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Yeah is team composition actually mattered the only ATs allowed on teams would be Defenders, Corruptors, Masterminds, Controllers and maybe VEATs.

[Sailboat]

I can't help but wonder if most of the ED haters were those horrible Tanker players who insisted nobody else play while they herded the map for a Blaster.  Ugh.

[HelenCarnate]

Before ED as a tank you could soft cap your defense without outside buffs and without taking any pool powers.  That is broken. If we still had no ED now with inventions you could get a brute with high recharge, 6 slot damage and footstomp everything in the area for around 400 damage every 5-6 seconds. That is also broken.  Yes I can do the same amount of damage now but that requires 2 extra powers which means more endurance use which means you have to plan your build instead of going into stupid easy mode and using 1 power and killing everything and not really having to worry about endurance use.  The game is easy enough with incarnate stuff for basically free, there is no need to make it even easier.

[Zolgar]

Everyone's looking through rose colored glasses here, so I'll say it:  it was a terrible change, it ruined a lot of fun in the game and quite frankly, that was Jack Emmert's MO.  You played the game HIS way or not at all.  It wasn't necessary, it was cruel and it was petty, and it made an already grindy game a horrible slog with lots of downtime (if you were lucky) or lots of deaths and debt accrual (if you weren't.)

 

Thankfully, they brought in Invention Origins that were actually diverse enhancements.  The game is now corrected, despite emmert's best efforts to force people to play HIS way.

 

ED was not a good thing, but its sting has been rendered mostly toothless.  Just... hope you got a lot of INF.

 

It's not rose colored glasses, it's hindsight.

 

I will agree, WHEN IT HAPPENED, ED was a pretty bad move. If it hadn't happened though, you basically had two choices for how to build your character, that was with HOs or SOs depending if you could do enough Hami raids to get HOs. If you were using SOs, well, you 6 slotted a few powers entirely with one type of enhancer. If you felt particularly squirly you might do 5/1 dam/acc in your attacks.

 

Without it we probably never would have seen IO sets, we probably never would have seen incarnate powers, there are some power sets we probably never would have seen.

[Dixa]

No.

 

When ED happened we didn't have IO's. We now have IO's that make you more powerful than we ever were with ED.

 

Only way you get ED back is if the IO system is stripped or people will just six slot acc/dmg/end/recharge which is moronic.

[Generator]

No.

 

When ED happened we didn't have IO's. We now have IO's that make you more powerful than we ever were with ED.

 

Only way you get ED back is if the IO system is stripped or people will just six slot acc/dmg/end/recharge which is moronic.

 

I can almost guarantee that none of the folks clamoring for ED rollback are ready to give up their Inventions.

[THEDarkTyger]

There was a mistake involving ED: Not having it in from the start. No one would have cared if it hadn't been a post launch change.

[Redlynne]

The problem with Enhancement Dysfunction is that the "solution" for it (re: Inventions and Invention Sets) didn't arrive for TWO YEARS after Enhancement Dysfunction was crammed down our throats as a surprise move by Cryptic.

 

It was necessary to make the necessary "room" for Set Bonuses to work the way they do ... but Enhancement Dysfunction was pushed Live TWO YEARS too early.

 

I know.

I was there.

And then I wasn't ... for TWO YEARS ...

And then I came back when Issue 9 launched and Inventions finally (finally!) "fixed" the problem that Enhancement Dysfunction created.

 

 

 

The other major problem with Enhancement Dysfunction is that it isn't a progressive "decay curve" of diminishing returns.  It's a {expletive deleted} punitive CLIFF Of Don't Do This™.