Overwhelming Overpower: A Controller Inherent Buff - Control AVs and GMs!

[Blackfeather]

21 hours ago, Darkneblade said:

I didn't do math but these should help controllers more I think

3 Mag mez

+ Chance to double mez already you have. So if you hit with 3+1 mag. it becomes 6+2 mag.

Similar to critical hit I think. It is still unreliable but it is better than what we have so far.

Also Containment damage bonus should include Pet's damage as well. With Fear and Confuse for added effect for obvious reasons.

So to clarify, you'd propose Overpower to work the same way as before, but instead of just adding +1 to a status effect inducing power, it doubles it instead? That sounds like an always-on, somewhat unreliable version of Domination, admittedly. I'm not entirely sold - the main reason I went this route with Overwhelming Overpower was to allow Controllers to lock down larger targets, albeit at a less reliable pace than Dominators can.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Blackfeather

[BitCook]

17 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

Did you take a look at the Potential Further Ideas section of the original post? There, I discussed a rough proposal about ways to increase the Controller's chance to Overpower. I'll copy it over now:

  Reveal hidden contents

+Chance to Overpower

Another idea that's come to mind is letting the actual chance for the Overpower effect occur more frequently depending on a stacking bonus, similar to how Stalkers can build higher chances for critical hits. Potential ideas for 'stacks' (of let's say 5%) could be:

• Stacking percentage based on how many status effects on an enemy are applied (even if they aren't affecting them)
  • E.g. Controller attempts to Hold + Sleep + Confuse an AV, chance to Overpower is now 20% + (5% + 5% + 5%) = 35% chance
• Stacking percentage based on how many recent control powers have been used (time pending)
• Stacking percentage based on previous controls that weren't an Overpower (increase chance if it hasn't happened lately)
  • E.g. Controller's previous two controls were regular ones, chance to Overpower is now 20% + (5% + 5%) = 30% chance

I'd be interested in getting your opinion on this mechanic, along with any critiques/suggestions you might have about it!

 

Another thing that's also important to keep in mind is that Dominators don't have perma-Domination out of the box. It takes a good amount of work and levels to get them there, with lots of recharge bonuses, and sometimes sacrifice in other aspects. I imagine @oedipus_tex would agree with this, given their love of Dominators.

 

By upping the chance to Overpower out of the box, I think that might potentially step on the Dominator's toes. My intention with keeping the chance to Overpower the same as before was to help differentiate the archetypes to some degree. Dominators eventually build up to be more powerful and reliable, while Controllers are more variable.

There is some truth there, but Dominators do not take that much effort to get to perma dom.  A couple IO sets and Hasten and you are pretty much there.  It's not like building in some global recharge is something that people don't want to do.  Most toons get the most bang for their IOs in doing so.

As for the increased chance, again I like it better.  Regardless of the control you are using at least you are building to something that will help you actually control something.  I'm still of the opinion that significantly upping the chance for controllers to control is the right move.  Dominators already get something that ALL endgame teams want.  Damage.  Controllers don't have that.  Frankly, they should always have been the better controller between the pair, however, that was not to be.

 

17 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

 

Also something to keep in mind is that by keeping the chance to Overpower the same, the Controller has another direct incentive to actually slot their status effect powers somewhat: they want to make their Overwhelming Overpower last, and to help encourage it to happen more often, they can slot the power for more recharge, thus 'rolling the dice' more often.

More slotting options are good, but the chance has to be high enough for me to want to do this as opposed to just putting 6 procs into it because that's my most damaging attack and frankly it's better than holding something anyway.  If it became a reasonably reliable way to one shot bosses and EVs and a reasonable chance to build to hold an AV then I could see slotting for it.  Until it's better than a 5-10 or even 30% chance I probably would still six slot damage procs.

17 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

The stance that I'm coming from with the introduction of this mechanic is that I don't really think Controllers are 'broken' in the first place - they're generally an enjoyable archetype for me to play, but it'd be nice if they could actually do something with their control powers while facing stronger enemies.

In that we disagree.  Don't get me wrong.  I love controllers.  My fist character on live was I3-4 and was a controller and I had/have dozens of combinations at 50 both from old live and here.  However, in this environment, and to some degree at the end of live, their purpose on a team has mostly vanished.

This isn't because the mechanics are bad.  It's that they are no longer needed.  Honestly, to most teams, a controller is dead weight even if they were able to one shot hold Bosses/EBs or to a lesser degree AVs.  Toons are too survivable and fights are over too quick for controls to be relevant to the current version of Live.  Sure, they're nice.  Yes, you can occasionally carry a bad team, or have a moment where you just let loose with your arsenal to save the team from an ambush... but the sad thing is that those are memorable because they are no longer all that common.  What I just described, most toons call an average day.  We can remember those incidents where we felt like we contributed because most of the time... we don't.

Now mechanically, are they broken?  Probably not.  Will this change make them better, yes.  Will it make them needed?  No.  Not because it isn't a good idea, but because the fundamental balance of the ATs and game has shifted to make them less needed.

 

17 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

As for the binary system, I figure that it's something that won't be changing any time soon - the least intrusive way to work with this in my mind is to create a gradient of one's own, which is where taking advantage of the places where it isn't binary. In this case, that's Overpower, and thus the reason why I decided to go the route of tweaking it. A control power that works 100% of the time 20% of the time effectively circumvents this whole binary issue, you know?

Oh I have no illusions that it would happen any time soon.  That's a core system and changing from binary to non binary is a pretty major shift.  It's just what I would do.  Your idea is a good one.  It solves the problem of not having a reason to cast a control.  I don't think it's going to solve Controllers and their issues for the stuff I mentioned above.

[Blackfeather]

On 9/23/2020 at 5:58 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

Right now from an AoE Hold perspective there's really no reason to roll a controller having a base 240 second recharge, whereas newer blaster secondaries have AoE holds in them have a 90 second base recharge for the same magnitude as a controller minus the overpower proc. Then blaster's damage scale is far superior to a controllers.

Admittedly, I never quite considered Controllers or Dominators as having issues with locking down groups of enemies - granted, it'd be nice to get the base recharge time of AoE Holds to go down to something like, say, 180 seconds, but it's not too much of an issue for me, given the vast array of tools in their arsenal. Additionally, I've heard rumours about balance passes for Blasters - I wouldn't be surprised if that recharge was upped for those AoE Hold powers, because honestly that's way too low.

On 9/23/2020 at 5:58 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

As an AT inherent overpowe, as it is, is mediocre at best. If changing the Overpower mechanic is on the table I think controllers would be better served by a revamp such as:

"For every mezzed target the controller currently has, the controller receives a recharge reduction towards it's AoE holds/stuns/sleeps/etc" (perhaps 10% recharge redux for an AoE Mez active since they either in 90 seconds for AoE soft controls, 5% recharge redux for targets under a single target hold/Imob/confuse, and 2.5% for mobs under an AoE Imob?).

 

That way it rewards a controller for controlling with more frequent access to it's long recharging AoE powers. This would help change the dynamic between controllers and dominators while still sticking to the core cottage rule of the AT.

Hmm...I'll admit, having reduced recharge time on a Controller's powers does sound nice, but I'm not sure if it addresses the main issue that I personally have with the archetype: namely, the inability to lock down tougher targets like AVs/GMs on their own, causing half of their powerset to basically be irrelevant against them. Even if their powers recharged faster, it doesn't really make handling mobs any easier - I can do that just fine, in my experience. Overwhelming Overpower is intended to help resolve situations where an enemy's magnitude far exceeds a Controller's powers.

 

That being said, I do like that suggestion of building stacks by seeing how many enemies a Controller currently has locked down. Per my original post, I proposed a potential way of increasing the chance of an Overpower alongside the core proposal. An increase of 5% or 10% per enemy locked down might be interesting, though it sounds a little bit difficult to juggle in some scenarios - not all AVs/GMs are fought with a posse.

[Darkneblade]

Resolve mechanic can work with OP I think. Say enemy have %100 resolve Chance of Overwhelming Overpower reduces to %5 (min)

%90 = %7.5
%80 = %10
%70 = %12.5
%60 = %15
%50 = %17.5
%40 = %20
%30 = %22.5
%20 = %25
%10 = %27.5
% 0 = %30

Admittably this is huge task for creating resolve mechanic that said I can't think anything better. Maybe have IO that increases chance for overwhelming overpower to appear as well. And math looks right.

[Blackfeather]

41 minutes ago, Darkneblade said:

Resolve mechanic can work with OP I think. Say enemy have %100 resolve Chance of Overwhelming Overpower reduces to %5 (min)

%90 = %7.5
%80 = %10
%70 = %12.5
%60 = %15
%50 = %17.5
%40 = %20
%30 = %22.5
%20 = %25
%10 = %27.5
% 0 = %30

Admittably this is huge task for creating resolve mechanic that said I can't think anything better. Maybe have IO that increases chance for overwhelming overpower to appear as well. And math looks right.

I'm not really familiar with resolve and whatnot - think you can chime in here about all this, @FoulVileTerror? Sounds like this'd be a bit more up your alley.

[FoulVileTerror]

I hadn't actually mapped out what my idea for Resolve would be exactly in terms of numerical detail . . . but, yeah.  If we go with the obvious and make it a "Bar" like Hit Points or Endurance, then naturally there would be a range from 0% to 100% (or vice-versa).  I get the impression here that @Darkneblade is suggesting that the lower a target GM's Resolve is, comparatively by percent, the greater the odds of scoring an Overwhelming Overpower would be.

 

Basically, if I'm reading Darkne's proposal correctly, it would work like Scourge.  The closer to defeat/Control Magnitude the target gets, the more accelerated/likely that defeat/Overwhelming Overpower becomes.

[Blackfeather]

20 minutes ago, FoulVileTerror said:

I hadn't actually mapped out what my idea for Resolve would be exactly in terms of numerical detail . . . but, yeah.  If we go with the obvious and make it a "Bar" like Hit Points or Endurance, then naturally there would be a range from 0% to 100% (or vice-versa).  I get the impression here that @Darkneblade is suggesting that the lower a target GM's Resolve is, comparatively by percent, the greater the odds of scoring an Overwhelming Overpower would be.

 

Basically, if I'm reading Darkne's proposal correctly, it would work like Scourge.  The closer to defeat/Control Magnitude the target gets, the more accelerated/likely that defeat/Overwhelming Overpower becomes.

The overall concept does sound interesting - though I do wonder if it's possible to implement something similar using the current system in place. Maybe something like this?

 

(Current Magnitude Inflicted / Enemy Magnitude Protection) * 100 = additional chance to Overpower

 

So for instance, let's say that a Controller has inflicted a Mag 3 Hold against an Archvillain - plugging this into the formula would give us an additional 6% chance on top of the 20% chance that Overpower has of occurring ((3 / 50) * 100 = 6). Only slight problem might be against things such as GMs, which have higher levels of protection...but then again, they're also designed to be fought in groups, so it makes sense.

[Blackfeather]

9 hours ago, BitCook said:

There is some truth there, but Dominators do not take that much effort to get to perma dom.  A couple IO sets and Hasten and you are pretty much there.  It's not like building in some global recharge is something that people don't want to do.  Most toons get the most bang for their IOs in doing so.

As for the increased chance, again I like it better.  Regardless of the control you are using at least you are building to something that will help you actually control something.  I'm still of the opinion that significantly upping the chance for controllers to control is the right move.  Dominators already get something that ALL endgame teams want.  Damage.  Controllers don't have that.  Frankly, they should always have been the better controller between the pair, however, that was not to be.

Admittedly, I'm not entirely sold on this - it does take effort to reach perma-Domination, and that effort isn't trivial (though one more versed with Dominators such as @oedipus_tex, feel free to chime in about this). Something else to consider is that not all Dominators will be building to make their inherent perma. As such, higher Overpower chances will likely reduce the relative value of Domination itself. It's why I'd prefer using building stacks vs. outright increasing those chances: at least this way, the Controller needs to slot their powers accordingly to make them work a bit more effectively, same as Dominators.

 

Additionally, while it's true that Dominators do provide a means of damage in their secondary on a team, Controllers are force multipliers in their own right, contributing to damage indirectly via buffs and debuffs, in many cases on levels exponentially higher than any one team member. A well aimed -Res debuff, Forge, or Fulcrum Shift does far more than a lone Dominator can.

 

I figure that given that they both have a primary with controls, they ought to be similarly proficient with them, but with enough differences between how they go about being better. Hence Overwhelming Overpower's more chance based nature compared to Domination's super mode.

19 hours ago, BitCook said:

In that we disagree.  Don't get me wrong.  I love controllers.  My fist character on live was I3-4 and was a controller and I had/have dozens of combinations at 50 both from old live and here.  However, in this environment, and to some degree at the end of live, their purpose on a team has mostly vanished.

This isn't because the mechanics are bad.  It's that they are no longer needed.  Honestly, to most teams, a controller is dead weight even if they were able to one shot hold Bosses/EBs or to a lesser degree AVs.  Toons are too survivable and fights are over too quick for controls to be relevant to the current version of Live.  Sure, they're nice.  Yes, you can occasionally carry a bad team, or have a moment where you just let loose with your arsenal to save the team from an ambush... but the sad thing is that those are memorable because they are no longer all that common.  What I just described, most toons call an average day.  We can remember those incidents where we felt like we contributed because most of the time... we don't.

Now mechanically, are they broken?  Probably not.  Will this change make them better, yes.  Will it make them needed?  No.  Not because it isn't a good idea, but because the fundamental balance of the ATs and game has shifted to make them less needed.

Hmm...if your definition of "fixing" Controllers is to make them "needed" per your previous post, then personally I don't think any change to them is really going to cut it. No archetype is really essential to playing the game, and I think it'd be a detriment to it if that were the case.

 

If instead your issue with the archetype is that "things die too quickly for status effects to be useful" then no matter how strong a Controller's status effects are, they won't really address the issue you have with them - a more holistic look at how the game works would be of better use: asking questions as to why that's the case, and figuring out those root causes. After that, it's a matter of discussing that with others to see if they feel similarly.

 

My main pet peeve with Controllers is that they can't really lock down stronger enemies on their own - in groups with them, it's a given, but the binary nature of status effects means that there's this very wide threshold of "works" and "doesn't work". And that's where Overwhelming Overpower comes in: to help breach that gap somewhat.

[BitCook]

3 minutes ago, Blackfeather said:

If instead your issue with the archetype is that "things die too quickly for status effects to be useful" then no matter how strong a Controller's status effects are, they won't really address the issue you have with them - a more holistic look at how the game works would be of better use: asking questions as to why that's the case, and figuring out those root causes. After that, it's a matter of discussing that with others to see if they feel similarly.

 

My main pet peeve with Controllers is that they can't really lock down stronger enemies on their own - in groups with them, it's a given, but the binary nature of status effects means that there's this very wide threshold of "works" and "doesn't work". And that's where Overwhelming Overpower comes in: to help breach that gap somewhat.

I've been talking about this in the Game Balance thread with a number of others. (Here is a link that kind of sums what I feel) 

I do think that's a huge problem in the game right now in terms of roles and usefulness.

However, this is not that topic.  So on the issue of making controllers feel more like a controller.  Yes, I like this idea.  I think it bridges the gap that was created when Doms became a thing.  Controllers don't get damage which is really the #1 control so their controls should be on par with dominators.  Regardless of how hard/easy it is to achieve permadom, there is plenty of argument to say that Dominators are the superior controller.  They should not be.

So while I think this proposal does a good job of bridging that gap.  My thoughts on the usefulness of controls don't really matter when speaking to that aspect of the AT.

[Blackfeather]

7 minutes ago, BitCook said:

I've been talking about this in the Game Balance thread with a number of others. (Here is a link that kind of sums what I feel) 

I do think that's a huge problem in the game right now in terms of roles and usefulness.

However, this is not that topic.  So on the issue of making controllers feel more like a controller.  Yes, I like this idea.  I think it bridges the gap that was created when Doms became a thing.  Controllers don't get damage which is really the #1 control so their controls should be on par with dominators.  Regardless of how hard/easy it is to achieve permadom, there is plenty of argument to say that Dominators are the superior controller.  They should not be.

So while I think this proposal does a good job of bridging that gap.  My thoughts on the usefulness of controls don't really matter when speaking to that aspect of the AT.

Glad to hear the proposal itself sounds solid!

 

That being said, it sounds like it'd be a good idea to start a separate thread of your own about these potential issues, along with highlighting your personal feelings about them and so on. The General Discussion or Controller subforums might be a good place to put such a post.

 

An issue with the underlying system sounds like it's worth discussion about, along with any potential solutions and changes that might need to come about as a result of this. If it's indeed something about the game itself, I'm sure there'll be a good deal of people interested in talking about it!

[Blackfeather]

I should probably ping @DougGraves about this suggestion as well - I noticed you talking about Controllers in this thread that you created, so I imagine you've got a fair amount of experience under your belt as well. My suggestion aims to enable even a single Controller to lock down stronger enemies, if not all the time. Any thoughts/opinions/critiques on Overwhelming Overpower? Would be glad to hear them!

[Blackfeather]

On 9/16/2020 at 5:08 AM, Vanden said:

This seems completely useless. A 1-in-125 chance of it happening on an AV? You can already hold an AV 1/3rd-1/4th of the time while the triangles are down, but this feature you could run an entire LRSF without experiencing it once.

 

Edit: And a 1-in-10 chance of it happening on a Boss, even though a regular Overpower already holds a boss? What's the point of that?

Oh! Apologies Vanden, I didn't see that edit of yours until now. Basically, to explain the table, the results are cumulative - currently, Overpower has a 1 in 5 chance of occurring with every use of a status effect power, in other words, a 20% chance of happening. So with Overwhelming Overpower, the chance for Overpower remains the same: 20%. However, the new system also has a chance of inflicting more than an additional +1 magnitude.

 

This is what the Chance per Overpower section is supposed to represent. So in this new system, 50% of the time, Overpower functions as it does before - with a +1 that holds down a boss. However, on other occasions, it may instead be a +4, or a +54, or even rarer, +100.

 

Additional Magnitude	Chance per Overpower	Chance per Power Usage	Floating Text
+1 = affect a Boss	50%	10% = 10 in 100 uses	Overpower
+4 = affect an Elite Boss	25%	5% = 5 in 100 uses	Overpower!
+54 = affect an Archvillain	20%	4% = 4 in 100 uses	Overpower!!
+100 = affect a Giant Monster	5%	1% = 1 in 100 uses	Overpower!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope this clears things up! If you have any further questions about the table, please let me know.

[DougGraves]

You say that controls are binary, but they aren't quite.  Enemies can have resistance so that a control has no effect, but they can also reduce the duration of the effect.  So like debuffs work but at a reduced percent, you could also have controls work but for a shorter duration.

 

A problem I see with controls now is that they are not universally resisted.  Sleep works on many AV's.  So you can use static field in electricity to put them to sleep on and off - not full control, but it still works.  Whereas hold does nothing.

 

The best use of controls for bosses that I have seen is Guild Wars 2.  They have a defiance bar.  Bosses with a defiance bar get some effect while the defiance bar is up or some penalty while it is down.  The defiance bar is reduced by controls - different amounts depending on the control and its duration, so immobilize would lower it slightly and hold would lower it more.  And after the defiance bar is down, it comes back after a short time.  You can win without taking down a bosses defiance bar but it helps a lot.  And since every AT has controls of some sort they can all participate in it not just controllers and dominators.  Those ATs would just be better at it.

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiance_bar

[Blackfeather]

6 hours ago, DougGraves said:

You say that controls are binary, but they aren't quite.  Enemies can have resistance so that a control has no effect, but they can also reduce the duration of the effect.  So like debuffs work but at a reduced percent, you could also have controls work but for a shorter duration.

First off (and I apologise for being nitpicky): terminology. There are two factors when looking at status effects. The first is Protection. That's the total amount of magnitude that a character or NPC can withstand before succumbing to a status effect. The second is Resistance to status effects, which causes them to wear off faster. With that out of the way...

 

I'm not really sure whether the statement "controls are binary" is really up to disagreement (*waves at @ABlueThingy for confirmation on this*). Yes, status effects can be resisted, which do affect the duration of them, along with the Purple Patch, which does the same. However, they still fall under 'working' or 'not working' - there isn't an in between like how some are suggesting.

14 hours ago, DougGraves said:

A problem I see with controls now is that they are not universally resisted protected.  Sleep works on many AV's.  So you can use static field in electricity to put them to sleep on and off - not full control, but it still works.  Whereas hold does nothing.

Correct - to my knowledge, Archvillains and Giant Monsters have less protection against Immobilises and Sleeps than other status effects. Were you hoping for this lack of protection to be conferred to other status effects, or for them to also be protected against?

14 hours ago, DougGraves said:

The best use of controls for bosses that I have seen is Guild Wars 2.  They have a defiance bar.  Bosses with a defiance bar get some effect while the defiance bar is up or some penalty while it is down.  The defiance bar is reduced by controls - different amounts depending on the control and its duration, so immobilize would lower it slightly and hold would lower it more.  And after the defiance bar is down, it comes back after a short time.  You can win without taking down a bosses defiance bar but it helps a lot.  And since every AT has controls of some sort they can all participate in it not just controllers and dominators.  Those ATs would just be better at it.

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiance_bar

Having a read through the description, it sounds a little bit like a global magnitude system - instead of each status effect contributing to break down a separate magnitude protection score, each one works to wear off a single point of protection, with the added caveat that magnitude can continuously build and not wear off over time. Would that be a correct summation?

 

Otherwise, it might be something like that Resolve meter that @FoulVileTerror mentioned, but I'm not sure.

[DougGraves]

10 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

Having a read through the description, it sounds a little bit like a global magnitude system - instead of each status effect contributing to break down a separate magnitude protection score, each one works to wear off a single point of protection, with the added caveat that magnitude can continuously build and not wear off over time. Would that be a correct summation?

 

It is not a wearing off of protection, because the effect when you get rid of the bar is not that the control works - although you could do that.  Instead the effect differs depending upon the boss.

 

A boss might have damage resistance 50% unreducable, but when the bar is broken it goes away temporarily.  Or they might regenerate while the bar is up but stop regenerating while the bar is down.  Or they might have a damage aura while the bar is up, but it goes away while the bar is down. 

 

So controllers do not hold bosses, the can debuff them with controls in a way that is specific to the boss.  It has to be part of the design for each boss.

[Blackfeather]

6 hours ago, DougGraves said:

It is not a wearing off of protection, because the effect when you get rid of the bar is not that the control works - although you could do that.  Instead the effect differs depending upon the boss.

 

A boss might have damage resistance 50% unreducable, but when the bar is broken it goes away temporarily.  Or they might regenerate while the bar is up but stop regenerating while the bar is down.  Or they might have a damage aura while the bar is up, but it goes away while the bar is down. 

 

So controllers do not hold bosses, the can debuff them with controls in a way that is specific to the boss.  It has to be part of the design for each boss.

Admittedly, I'm not quite sure about what this proposal is meant to do, at least via the way that it's currently being described - aren't Controllers (and other archetypes for that matter) already able to debuff AVs/GMs? They're just fairly resisted.

 

The proposal at hand is meant to provide Controllers with the potential to lock down stronger enemies, but not 100% of the time. Currently a Controller on their own can't really breach the protection levels that AVs/GMs possess (outside of the Purple Triangles of course), and needs multiple other sources of controls to do so. It attempts to breach this gap somewhat - each Controller with Overwhelming Overpower also carries a chance to lock them down.

 

If you're proposing that enemies become more vulnerable to debuffs while they're controlled...hrm. While that certainly sounds potent, I do think that it'd be a little too potent - debuffs are already hefty force multipliers, and removing those resistances might make for trivial fights - the Purple Patch was designed to stop lower level characters from taking down much higher ones after all, and I do believe that part of this came from just how potent debuffs are against them when not reduced accordingly.

[DougGraves]

The idea is that holding a solo mob is too powerful.  If they cannot do anything, they will just lose.  Which is why controls generally do not work against AVs and GMs.

 

But the devs can decide on a specific effect that is okay to do to the boss and have the stacked controls cause that effect.

 

So it lets controls have an effect, but not the overpowering effect that they normally have.

[Blackfeather]

10 hours ago, DougGraves said:

The idea is that holding a solo mob is too powerful.  If they cannot do anything, they will just lose.  Which is why controls generally do not work against AVs and GMs.

 

But the devs can decide on a specific effect that is okay to do to the boss and have the stacked controls cause that effect.

 

So it lets controls have an effect, but not the overpowering effect that they normally have.

Correct - status effects are potent, and it's why Overwhelming Overpower works the way it does. A group of Controllers will of course be able to lock down an AV with little to no trouble: exceeding the Mag 50 protection is fairly trivial in those situations. However, there is this critical cut-off point, where there aren't enough of them, and their status effects are essentially 'wasted'.

 

This is what is meant by the status effect system being binary - either Held or not Held. Either Stunned or not Stunned, and so on. Overwhelming Overpower intends to breach this gap: a single Controller now has the chance to lock down stronger opponents, even without enough magnitude available to stack up to that level. They can't match a Dominator's consistent sheer strength, but with this proposal, they can occasionally burst past it.

 

That being said, it does sound like your proposal mirrors similar ones brought up, such as by @FoulVileTerror and @skoryy - they mentioned ideas about a resolve meter, resulting in different effects given a certain threshold. Which does sound interesting!

[Darkneblade]

To avoid whole City of Statues status maybe we can give AV's/GM's breakfree too. Nothing much just X seconds of 100 mez protection.

Like you hold enemy when it wears off they are immune to hold for X seconds

There will be timers on different status effect as well including knockback.

Though this is similar to purple triangles it is not. When they use breakfree AV's/GM's debuff resistance is temporarily drops. If you can stack different status effect all together.

Held = Drops their debuff resistance
Held/Stun = Drops further
Held/Stun/Terrorize = Drops even further
Held/Stun/Terrorize/Confuse = Drops even furtherer
Held/Stun/Terrorize/Confuse/Immobilize = Immobilize is useless so it is not drops. Same as Sleep.

Edited September 28, 2020 by Darkneblade

[Blackfeather]

13 hours ago, Darkneblade said:

To avoid whole City of Statues status maybe we can give AV's/GM's breakfree too. Nothing much just X seconds of 100 mez protection.

Like you hold enemy when it wears off they are immune to hold for X seconds

There will be timers on different status effect as well including knockback.

Though this is similar to purple triangles it is not. When they use breakfree AV's/GM's debuff resistance is temporarily drops. If you can stack different status effect all together.

Held = Drops their debuff resistance
Held/Stun = Drops further
Held/Stun/Terrorize = Drops even further
Held/Stun/Terrorize/Confuse = Drops even furtherer
Held/Stun/Terrorize/Confuse/Immobilize = Immobilize is useless so it is not drops. Same as Sleep.

What do you think about this idea, @DougGraves? It sounds like this would be something you'd be more familiar with.

[Blackfeather]

On another note, I noticed you talking about Controllers in this thread here, @Mystic_Cross - while it's only somewhat related, I think this proposal might interest you; I discuss the other 'critical strike' aspect of Controllers in their Overpower mechanic, and how it might be improved to help them lock down bigger targets. Would be glad for you to give it a read, along with any of your thoughts on it!

[Mystic_Cross]

6 hours ago, Blackfeather said:

On another note, I noticed you talking about Controllers in this thread here, @Mystic_Cross - while it's only somewhat related, I think this proposal might interest you; I discuss the other 'critical strike' aspect of Controllers in their Overpower mechanic, and how it might be improved to help them lock down bigger targets. Would be glad for you to give it a read, along with any of your thoughts on it!

I've eyeballed this threads title a few times already while browsing... Just haven't had an ideal time to give it a proper read. While my comment in that link was purely just a random thought, I do find your topic interesting and I'd be happy to look through it at some point soon(tm). 

 

No guarantees on whether or not I'll have any worthy input, of course, but I do appreciate the invitation. Thank you 🙂

 

[Mystic_Cross]

On 9/15/2020 at 11:42 AM, Blackfeather said:

As it stands, Dominators are the better choice for actually locking down stronger enemies due to their inherent: the doubled strength of their control powers mean that they're much more capable of exceeding the status effect protections that such enemies possess.

I've read through the entire thread and I don't necessarily dislike the idea. In fact I think it's fairly interesting, if not a bit overly complicated. Still, I have to say... this one sentence stands out to me as being both the most obvious, and easiest solution to implement. 

 

You could tweak your formula here to come out with very similar performance to Doms while maintaining a completely different and unique way of getting there, and still be at least equally able to hold AVs/GMs. It could also be substantively easier to implement without all of the variable %chances. Unless the overall end goal is to make Controllers able to occasionally one-shot hold AVs and GMs? Frankly, that would be overpowered at times no matter how low the %chances are. You would still run into streaks and streak-breakers making you often useless, and sometimes OP. Possibly game-breaking OP. 
 

Edit to add: I’m not 100% sure, but there may also be a lower limit for %chance similar to procs, or even hit chance... which may not allow anything below 5%. There are no %chances  to trigger below that value in the game that I’m aware of. If so, it would make the entire idea unworkable without changing those values.

Edited October 1, 2020 by Mystic_Cross

[Blackfeather]

On 10/1/2020 at 6:30 PM, Mystic_Cross said:

I've read through the entire thread and I don't necessarily dislike the idea. In fact I think it's fairly interesting, if not a bit overly complicated. Still, I have to say... this one sentence stands out to me as being both the most obvious, and easiest solution to implement. 

 

You could tweak your formula here to come out with very similar performance to Doms while maintaining a completely different and unique way of getting there, and still be at least equally able to hold AVs/GMs. It could also be substantively easier to implement without all of the variable %chances. Unless the overall end goal is to make Controllers able to occasionally one-shot hold AVs and GMs? Frankly, that would be overpowered at times no matter how low the %chances are. You would still run into streaks and streak-breakers making you often useless, and sometimes OP. Possibly game-breaking OP. 
 

Edit to add: I’m not 100% sure, but there may also be a lower limit for %chance similar to procs, or even hit chance... which may not allow anything below 5%. There are no %chances  to trigger below that value in the game that I’m aware of. If so, it would make the entire idea unworkable without changing those values.

Thanks for writing up a response!

 

One thing I've found quite interesting is the fact that there's a lot of different stances on how powerful this proposal is - I do believe @Vanden found this to be kind of underpowered for instance. Similarly the lack of reliability was something that @MTeague had some issues with, to my recollection. @BitCook was also in this camp, I think.

 

On the other hand, @Noyjitat and @zenblack did voice their concerns about this proposed mechanic; status effects are indeed potent and quite binary, even with this variable chance included with it. It'd be nice if there were somebody around who could figure out the whole 'on average' level of control that Overwhelming Overpower might provide to better gauge its power.

 

The thing about Dominators is that with Domination on, they have strong, reliable controls; they generally are able to one-shot lock down most things - a Controller is unable to do that no matter how they build themselves. I figured that 'unreliable, but potentially powerful' status effects could be a niche that this archetype could fit into without stepping on the Dominator's toes.

 

As such, I'm not quite sure how Overwhelming Overpower can directly scale against Dominators in magnitude. Domination has the ability to reliably double the efficacy of all status effect powers - Overpower will always only have a 20% chance of dealing +1 magnitude. Even if its magnitude were to increase to match it, that still leaves Domination as the better choice due to it being able to consistently lock down stronger enemies.

 

So basically that small one-shot chance I figured was an equalising factor for Controllers to be able to do that kind of thing in some rare instances: they don't have enough magnitude to reliably stack it. Upping its magnitude across the board was something that I considered, but then I thought about how high it ought to be to exactly match a Dominator. A 20% chance of a Mag 6 status effect? That's something a perma-Dom can do 100% of the time. Multiply that by 5 to compensate? That's a Mag 30 status effect.

 

The scaling magnitude of Overwhelming Overpower came from the desire to strike that balance between a spectrum of 'too powerful, too reliable' and 'too weak, too unreliable'. Of course, actually figuring out whether that's the case is one of the more difficult parts, as the discussion about this is proving! 😄

[Dahkness]

At least you get a semi cool inherit power while you team. Defenders pretty much get nothing. I don't play this game to solo.