Game Balance & The Endgame

[Vanden]

6 minutes ago, skoryy said:

I've been thinking something like Containment's extra damage kicking in on all holds, immobilizes, sleeps, and disorients.  Also, all pool powers should be eligible for the containment damage bonus.

Pretty sure both of these are already the case.

[Captain Yesterday]

13 minutes ago, Giovanni Valia said:

The numbers really speak for themselves here. TW is an outlier. it's OP. Everyone knows it, but not everyone will admit it.

It is OP. I will admit its OP. And it should STAY OP - why?

Because there is no better way for me to have TIME to clean my house and bake a pumpkin pie than to Que up a Titan weapon attack.

Thanks to that windup,

I can play coh and read, get a nap in, do macrame.

ANYBODY, who can tolerate the deadliest "old woman in a rocking chair" powerset of attacks at TURTLE windup SPEED DESERVES the FULL POWER it unleashes!

Edited September 21, 2020 by Captain Yesterday

[Captain Yesterday]

9 minutes ago, Noyjitat said:

You can go out and get a drivers license but that doesn't mean you're going to be a good driver. I really don't care what credentials those have developing homecoming. What I care about is if you are willing to fold when the people playing your game have problems with your greater vision rather than stick to it unmoving.

THIS is the real point of any of my posts.

 

You the Best.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Captain Yesterday

[skoryy]

1 minute ago, Vanden said:

Pretty sure both of these are already the case.

Yeah, I knew it was kinda hard to explain that quickly.  AFAIK, you have to have the status effect first for Containment to kick in the extra damage.  What I'm suggesting is that it should automatically affect any time you use a Containment power.  I also remember reading here somewhere that epic pool powers don't get the Containment damage bonuses, but that might be wrong?

[Machariel]

51 minutes ago, Captain Yesterday said:

Nope. Can't.

 

Dev's asking for player input, then refining it, and then implementing it base purely on player input and not some dev based plans(nerfs) I have never seen done.

You may or may not know this but I assume many people reading this do not:

EVE Online has a "Council of Stellar Management," (CSM) which is a group of 10 players, elected by democratic vote of account holders (caveat: one vote per paid account, and players with multiple accounts are extremely common in EVE), whose official role is the be the player liaison to the developers.  They regularly converse with the developers and get flown out to Reykjavik, Iceland for a 5-day summit annually, the output of which are meeting minutes.  It has led to a number of balance changes.

 

That's the closet thing that I'm aware of to what you're describing and there was a LOT of compromise with the developer team, who obviously had the final say.  I mean it's always going to be "dev based plans" that get implemented into a game (or into anything else that's developed)... if the devs don't plan to do it then it doesn't happen.

 

There are in-game campaigns but the CSM had its own section on the forums and while it's possible to spam chat with messages or leave billboards out in space it's also quite easy in EVE to filter those out.  I should point out also that EVE Online is about the MMO that I can think of that's furthest away from City of Heroes in spirit - sandbox vs theme park, PVP vs PVE, punishing vs accessible, etc and I would guess a much higher proportion of what we would call "highly engaged players".  For various reasons already stated by other players I think probably CoH doesn't need a kind of direct democratic mechanism in place.

 

Some interesting trivia is that the CSM was formed after the fallout of a game developer using his admin privileges to spawn rare items that gave his in-game alliance a considerable advantage, and that early on part of the expectation for the CSM was that they would be a check on the developers Internal Affairs department. 🛸

 

[Machariel]

17 minutes ago, Giovanni Valia said:

The numbers really speak for themselves here. TW is an outlier. it's OP. Everyone knows it, but not everyone will admit it.

I'm aware. 😉

21 minutes ago, Machariel said:

My unsolicited thoughts on Titan Weapons btw are that while the set is clearly an overperformer by the numbers, and while it is very popular, I actually think it's in a good place and I don't feel like I see much of it in the wild.  Obviously that's an anecdote and not indicative of anything, but to fortify my ego I will present this completely unjustified observation

[Neiska]

To go back on topic, I am fine with TW getting changed, particularly with the unwieldy momentum mechanic that plays like a bathtub on a slip n slide. I just hope they don't overnerf it, with regards to the other ATs that use it (Brutes and Tankers), instead of the bio/TW scrapper combo that seems to be the main issue with it.

 

I have noticed no one has commented yet on Energy Melee, Trick Arrow, or the Blaster changes. The post says there will be more buffs than nerfs, so there is that. And my interest is peaked with the incarnate crafting system changes. (Hoping we might get to do something with excess threads)

 

If we were allowed to wish for other things, personally I would throw recharge pets up for consideration, but that's just me.

[Captain Yesterday]

15 minutes ago, Machariel said:

That's the closet thing that I'm aware of to what you're describing and there was a LOT of compromise with the developer team, who obviously had the final say. 

MY WHOLE point is - maybe this is worth a try. Can the Homecoming team learn to work with the players, where before in COH/COV they went wrong of many? You might not know how many players COH/COV lost because you were one who stayed and/or were not affected.

I initially quit coh after the 1st  regen nerf. It was my only character I had time to play. I didn't go back till Villains. Did Coh fail because 1 guy left their servers? I think not. BUT now there is NEW freedom and NEW OPPORTUNITY for homecoming to be BIGGER AND BETTER that coh ever was - If they LIsten! Do the New Devs have the flexibility and foresight to put the people who use their product first (within reason) BEFORE their own egos so it can last this time? This post said it best.

24 minutes ago, Noyjitat said:

I really don't care what credentials those have developing homecoming. What I care about is if you are willing to fold when the people playing your game have problems with your greater vision rather than stick to it unmoving.

 

Also I see the same people here that always defend the nerfs of powers they don't like but jump for joy when something gets buffed that they don't enjoy playing. Im not sure its like they are more upset about an npcs feelings getting hurt than they are the player enjoying the powers

 

Edited September 21, 2020 by Captain Yesterday

[ScarySai]

29 minutes ago, skoryy said:

I've been thinking something like Containment's extra damage kicking in on all holds, immobilizes, sleeps, and disorients.  Also, all pool powers should be eligible for the containment damage bonus.

I agree, though I think a set like Gravity should definitely hit harder and not really need procs to do it's thing, considering how it was clearly designed to be more aggressive than most sets.

 

Singy often does more damage than you, he's awesome, but come on.

[Greycat]

Development is not and should not be a democracy. Especially of the playerbase. They can (and do) take suggestions into consideration, but at the end, it's their call on what can and should be done. They have access to more information and a broader view. They'll buff what they think needs buffing, tone down what they think needs toning down.

 

IOW, I might not *like* getting shots, being told to exercise more, change my diet, but given I'll live longer and have a better life as a result, I'll listen for my health. I'll discuss tweaks and preferences with my doctor, but in the end, they can see what's going on better than I can.

 

If the health of the game requires soemthing to be nerfed? I'll take a healthy game over one that's broken.

[Galaxy Brain]

So, a note about my test for Blasters is that I did only run it on SO's, and I largely ignored the secondary to try and "isolate" the primary blast set as much as possible. I chose to not rely on the secondary too much as well... blaster secondaries are all somewhat different compared to the Scrapper Test where /WP was sort of a "middle ground" that other armors could compare to and would also not get in the way of their primaries. So, I decided to stick with more or less the basics to see how the Primaries could compare if you put them into essentially a vacuum to be fair as different Pri/Sec could have drastically different results. Another factor here was simply time... say I ran with a few different styles of secondary, I would need to triple the amount of work!

 

+0/x3 was chosen due to it being something that would allow both ST and AoE capabilities to shine a bit more equally throughout the tests while also being sort of the SO baseline anyways. More than x3 would probably favor AoE a bit too much mob to mob, and in my humble opinion the amount of enemies you can amass at a time in the test can equal or exceed the target caps, or at least mirror what you may be taking down in a full 8-man team in any given fight if other players are slapping baddies down alongside you. If say, 3 other damage dealers are blowing up the spawn then I would say it's realistic you wouldn't actually be taking on an "8 man spawn" yourself, if that makes sense? So for a solo run-through of these tests, I chose a difficulty that would give a bit more balanced results.

 

Anyways, speaking of these tests I do want to share data with you all in regards to the melee sets that I have been running using the new Office Map seen in the following threads:
Blaster Testing

Mastermind Testing

 

The below charts show the data collected from HC Beta for all available Scrapper Primaries in a mission setting designed to emulate what one may see in a Story-Arc mission, with different floors, doors, required Boss take-downs and an Elite Boss encounter that tests AoE and ST capabilities alike as seen in the rules of those linked threads. 

 

SO's:

 

 

SO's with Claws and KM's Ranged Cones slotted with: lvl 50 Dam IO + Overwhelming Dam/KD to still achieve the 95% damage slotting + remove knockback:

 

This second run was done as there were only 2 powers across all the sets that could realistically change with a conversion to Knockdown, that being Claws (Shockwave) and KM (Repulsing Torrent). Unlike with other IO slotting, the ability to use a single Unique IO + lvl 50 generic IO allows you to have the same enhanced stats in the power while simply changing the knockback factor. Both sets improve significantly (KM becomes much less of a "bad" outlier), but even Claws is still a large gap below Titan Weapons here.

 

Now, something new I haven't talked about yet...

 

IO's: +3/x5 runs

 

A new metric was born from my testing in wanting to take it to the next logical step: a mid-level IO build. The build had a few goals in mind:

1. Drop the lowest DPA attack / Worst power in each Set to make room, rely on the "good" powers
2. Each attack has a single damage proc (Either Mako's or Obliteration), and uses a full set (except Claws and KM to remove KB)
3. Global recharge is either 142.5% with hasten up, or 72.5% for 20s while hasten is down
4. Fit in the normal globals (Numina, Kismet, etc)
5. No Purples / Winters / other "super high tier" IO's

 

Example: Mid Level Scrapper IO

 

Its not super-optimized, and lacks certain procs on purpose as it is supposed to rep a sort of "mid level" build that is more for general use / getting a damage proc in there rather than really focusing on what the sets can slot / can synergize with. The difficulty was ramped up when I ran these particular tests up from 0/3 to 3/5 to accurately copy the accuracy discrepancy we see at +0 vs +1 enemies on SO's, though in retrospect running these sets against the same "course" so to speak may be a better comparison, but I digress.

 

 

Either way, in both the SO and IO (mid) categories we see two things:

1. Most all sets have an avg time spread that more or less neatly flows from one to another
2. There are two major outliers.. 1 being Titan Weapons with a great big gap over the next highest set, and KM on the opposite end below the rest. 

 

In a case like this, it is 100% fair to buff Kinetic Melee to fit somewhere in the rest of the pack. But, that still leaves TW as the outlier on the top where it is much better than the other sets. Do we buff ALL the other sets to get as good / nearly as good as TW? Or do we reign the one outlier in back to the pack?

Edited September 21, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[JayboH]

21 minutes ago, Captain Yesterday said:

It is OP. I will admit its OP. And it should STAY OP

It won't, but I am eager for you to try the changes when they hit.

 

10 minutes ago, Neiska said:

I have noticed no one has commented yet on Energy Melee, Trick Arrow, or the Blaster changes.

I can make generalizations about Energy Melee and Trick Arrow - I think many will enjoy what's been done.  I spent a good chunk of time on Trick Arrow specifically.  Energy Melee is not bottom-of-the-barrel anymore - some of the loooong standing concerns have been addressed.  Trick Arrow is much better and it was already a fun set.  I only found one power change that is rather odd but beyond that I will wait until they post about it to say anything else out of respect for the hard work the team put in.

[ScarySai]

I still think Trick arrow needs a new ability.

 

Here's my proposal: Arrow of Vengeance!

 

What does it do? I'm glad you asked!

 

Arrow of Vengeance: Shoots your targeted ally in the head and kills them instantly, but it casts vengeance on your entire party when you do this.

[Vanden]

1 minute ago, ScarySai said:

I still think Trick arrow needs a new ability.

 

Here's my proposal: Arrow of Vengeance!

 

What does it do? I'm glad you asked!

 

Arrow of Vengeance: Shoots your targeted ally in the head and kills them instantly, but it casts vengeance on your entire party when you do this.

I like it, very Frieza in DBS: Broly

[ScarySai]

1 minute ago, Vanden said:

I like it, very Frieza in DBS: Broly

"EVERYBODY, LOOK - IT'S SUCH A TRAGEDY!"

[Monos King]

19 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Arrow of Vengeance: Shoots your targeted ally in the head and kills them instantly, but it casts vengeance on your entire party when you do this.

Dead serious, I think this should be added as a temporary power for the next Valentine's Day Event, and should do moderate damage so it isn't a guaranteed kill but if it does kill it buffs everyone. Gets a real long recharge too. I am fully aware this could be used as a troll tactic and care not. I reject your objections, I reject them!

[Widower]

Just now, Monos King said:

Dead serious, I think this should be added as a temporary power for the next Valentine's Day Event, and should do moderate damage so it isn't a guaranteed kill but if it does kill it buffs everyone. Gets a real long recharge too. I am fully aware this could be used as a troll tactic and care not. I reject your objections, I reject them!

That would make the April Fools' Day Baby Riot look like a tea party.

[ScarySai]

...I didn't see a 'no' in there.

[Ralathar44]

I'm interested in seeing the Trick Arrow changes but I suspect part of the reason Trick Arrow underperforms currently is because it takes awhile to get running and then it becomes good during mid levels.  However because of power creep you now commonly face +4s (and even +5s) at level 30+ and thanks to the purple patch debuff and control sets get pretty screwed over.  And people getting their defenses all soft capped via IOs kinda screws over pure defense sets.  So you're left with basically damage, damage, and more damage.   And MMs get highly screwed over from this too.  Thanks to leadership people can compensate for the to-hit and damage issues of the purple patch and IO sets give people the survivabiltiy they need to handle it but debuff/control/pet survivability has no such compensation and gets left swiftly behind since they do not have competitive options to boost those reliably across power sets.  And honestly I'm not sure if we SHOULD be aiming to have everyone handle +4/+5 lol.

All of the most popularly played defender sets are because they increase damage.  Empathy is king by far due to it's ability to increase the damage and to hit of 4 people at once significantly (while increasing their defense) then Adrenaline boost supercharges someone.  Then Regen/Recovery Aura takes care of endurance problems and heals most attrition damage that makes it through people's softcapped defenses.  And if someone gets hit hard then it has direct heals and a rez.  Many players still view Empathy as a "healer set".  Empathy is one of the most powerful and reliable offense empowerment sets available.  Thermal should, in theory, be better at increasing damage thanks to forge being even better than Fortitude at increasing damage, but it lacks any endurance management and has no answer to Adrenaline Boost...which is prolly the strongest single target buff in the game.  So Empathy ends up being just as good or better at increasing the offense of a team while also being better at keeping them safe.  Honestly empathy is and has been one of the strongest sets in the game, but still manages to maintain a reputation as a "healer" set by folks who don't actually understand how the set works.

The only non-damage oriented set to crack the top 5 defender primaries is Force Field, because of all the "keep you safe" power sets it's prolly the strongest at pure safety, the easiest to do without screwing up, and the cheapest both endurance and power wise.  This makes it the premier set for easily keeping an entire team safe while being able to just happily blast away like a discount blaster.  Lowest Maintenance defender :P.
 

Edited September 21, 2020 by Ralathar44

[Monos King]

 

2 minutes ago, GM Widower said:

That would make the April Fools' Day Baby Riot look like a tea party.

I'm just making the hard decisions, sometimes you need to be sacrificed for the teams moral. All I'm sayin.

[ScarySai]

It'll be teammate-only, they signed the contract, they get shot!

[golstat2003]

If they intend to nerf TW (which I agree they should), then I would advise fixing the momentum mechanic, which I'd argue is one of the worst mechanics in the game.

 

Seriously if not for the damage I would have dropped my TW Brute and stripped it of IOs ages ago.

 

The momentum mechanic is f*&%ing terrible.

Edited September 21, 2020 by golstat2003

[GM Korvin]

4 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

If they intend to nerf TW (which I agree they should), then I would advise fixing the momentum mechanic, which I'd argue is one of the worst mechanics in the game.

 

Seriously if not for the damage I would have dropped my TW Brute and stripped it of IOs ages ago.

 

The momentum mechanic is f*&%ing terrible.

2 hours ago, Number Six said:

Some powers are nerfed AND buffed.

 

TW is a great example of that. The overall damage output has some of the "you paid real money for this set" damage bonus removed (I can't help but imagine a weapon enhancement that is someone taping dollar bills to a big sword). However, there's also a mechanics change to Momentum that is a fairly big deal QoL-wise and hopefully will make the set less frustrating to play.

This might be of interest to you!

[WindDemon21]

4 hours ago, Super Atom said:

I'll take your word on it, but not with Blizzard. 1 power killing a +4/x8 group isn't bad, it's not instant like inferno but it doesn't need to be, since i can use blizzard in every group but inferno is about every other group. Granted. Fire doesn't need inferno to kill a group about as fast as blizzard.

I'm pretty sure blizzard is on a 170s base recharge and inferno is on a 145s recharge, so I don't see how you're getting that...

[golstat2003]

2 minutes ago, GM Korvin said:

This might be of interest to you!

Thank you devs!!! FINALLY!!! 😄