Game Balance & The Endgame

[Rejolt]

15 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

...

 

This is ... glorious.

 

Edit: The tech for this is already in the game.

 

You turn this toggle on and as with Khel shapeshifting, it locks you out of all other attacks.

And like Judgement Vorpal, you don't need a target, it just hits whatever is in front of you.

And it doesn't root you so you can just hop into a spawn and spin around.

 

I want this so bad.

That would feel oddly Champions Online-ish with power armor toggles but I'm game for it!

[Ralathar44]

16 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

For whatever it's worth, for anyone who feels like their support characters aren't valued on end-game teams? I highly recommend running them exemplared with lower level groups. That's what I do routinely with all but one of mine. (The Time/Dark I mentioned up-thread... Ivory... is the only one I run at 50+) Those groups are the ones that need you and they'll usually love to have you. It's good fun.

If you're based around damage/defense your options just expand as you level.  If you're support your options just contract as you level.  It's like anti-progression. Exemplaring down lets you experience more of your build again, but you lose powers so you never really get to use all of it in the same way damage/defense classes can.  And that's not how the game used to be.

[Troo]

54 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

I'm more in the mindset that lets just let things be and buff underperforming power sets like they did the dom revamp.  

 

With how trans-formative blasters have become and how they are currently it's clearly this group of devs baby.  So I'm using them more as a hostage to justify what they want to do to everyone else and maybe to put the knife down and we can set their baby down.  

wait wait.. are you referring to level 40 blasters? or T4 50s that are fully IO'd out?

[Coyotedancer]

On 9/24/2020 at 12:43 PM, Ralathar44 said:

If you're based around damage/defense your options just expand as you level.  If you're support your options just contract as you level.  It's like anti-progression. Exemplaring down lets you experience more of your build again, but you lose powers so you never really get to use all of it in the same way damage/defense classes can.  And that's not how the game used to be.

I'm not sure I really agree with that... I think there may be some Nostalgia Goggles involved here. Some pining for the "good old days" that never were...

 

Brightfires, my very first City character (and first 50-), was a Kinetic Defender. Even way-back-when, higher level teams liked having her around certainly, but really didn't NEED her. I'd have said the same about the Sonic and FF Defenders who followed her. The only time they needed my Empath was the STF where someone had to keep GW from doing terrible things to the tank. 

 

Were some characters and teams less independent of support characters than they are now? Sure. But if there was ever a Golden Age when people didn't dare set foot in a difficult mission without their Defenders and Controllers, I don't think I ever saw it. 

Edited October 23, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[Ralathar44]

3 hours ago, KeepDistance said:

I don't have a dog in this race, but this example doesn't prove your point; the steamroll team will take out 3 mobs in 27 seconds rather than 3 mobs in 30 seconds.

You're ignoring application time and recharge time. 


- If a team is clearing mobs in 10 seconds then alot of debuffs don't actually recharge fast enough to be applied on every mob. 

- Debuffs get aggro so you cannot throw them down, generally, before someone takes the alpha or lots of bad things like damage/dealth/held/slept/knockedback/end drained/etc happen.  So you're always throwing them down after engage.  This might before before the major AOEs land or it might not.  In a 20+ second fight multiple rounds of AOEs happen so if some AOEs land a split second before your debuffs take effect its ok because further attacks will still benefit and you've got plenty of fight left to return value.  If your debuff lands a split second after a single major AOE in the 10 second clear group however you've lost most of the value you were going to add to that fight.


And that's if you had 1 ability to worry about throwing out. The impact gets larger the more abilities you throw out.



So lets look at a blaster vs Trick Arrow.  Blaster throws out 2-3 AOEs and then uses their single target attacks.  In 10 seconds they prolly use 6-8 abilities all with good effect.  With Trick Arrow you throw out Disruption Arrow and Acid Arrow and then blast once or twice with your weak blast attacks and everything is dead.  You don't use poison gas arrow, you don't use glue arrow, you don't use ice arrow.  Oil Slick Arrow has a 60s recharge even at 1/3rd of base recharge, Disruption arrow has 20s recharge even at 1/3rd of base recharge.  So realistically you're using disruption arrow every 2nd fight, Acid Arrow every fight, and then Oil Slick Arrow every 5th-6th fight at best.

OR, you can play a class that actually gets to feel like they've done something.

[Mezmera]

Just now, Troo said:

wait wait.. are you referring to level 40 blasters? or T4 50s that are fully IO'd out?

Typically I get a ride to 30 on any toon and so I'll start kitting my blaster out with IO sets then.  I hate having to keep re-upping with SO's.  At level 40 when I'm blasting I'm doing quite well on them, and even level 30 for that matter.  That's without purple IOs and the really good stuff.  

 

Blasters had always been pretty good, yes a bit more tender to play but on good teams they were already great to be playing.  But now they're just so easy to play at all levels.

[ShardWarrior]

2 hours ago, Phoenix' said:

3 blasters in the team nuking constantly every 20 - 30 secs is not fun for anyone. 

It must be fun for those doing the nuking since they are doing it ever 20 to 30 seconds.  Do they not count?

[Troo]

53 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

Why is Dark Melee so high?

survive-ability / utility.. I'd jump to guess.

 

 

In other news: Full Auto as a bullet shield toggle would be one heck of an animation.

 

Edited September 24, 2020 by Troo

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, ScarySai said:

With respect, Paragon added those for a reason and I don't think it should be removed because you don't like that min/maxers are able to do crazy things with the extra resources.

I have to agree.

 

The sustains make being a Blaster fun.

 

Without them they spent WAY too much time Resting.  Which was not fun.  

[Ralathar44]

13 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

I'm not sure I really agree with that... I think there may be some Nostalgia Goggles involved here. Some pining for the "good old days" that never were...

 

Brightfires, my very first City character (and first 50-), was a Kinetic Defender. Even way-back-when, higher level teams liked having her around certainly, but really didn't NEED her. I'd have said the same about the Sonic and FF Defenders who followed her. The only time they needed my Empath was when the STF came along and someone had to keep GW from doing terrible things to the tank. 

 

Were some characters and teams less independent of support characters than they are now? Sure. But if there was ever a Golden Age when people didn't dare set foot in a difficult mission without their Defenders and Controllers, I don't think I ever saw it. 

What you responded too never said they were NECESSARY.  That's a complete shift from what I expressed.  What I said was that the available useful powers you have as support actually get smaller as you level now.  Survivability assistance is not only not necessary it's not even helpful in most cases now because the average level of defense people have is so high.   Same with utility.

There are basically 4 distinct stages of support usefulness I can recall.

- Pre-ED:  Tanks did not need or really even benefit from your survival buffs, some scrappers didn't either.  Everyone else did.  Not every team had a god tank or uber scrapper on it.  Your utility and damage increasing powers varied in usefulness dependent on the team but were almost always pretty useful.  CC was useful or not dependent on whether a tank (who could control and survive all aggro) was on the team. 

- Post-ED: but Pre-IO: Survability buffs were highly valued and again, not necessary, but quite helpful.  Utility and damage increasing powers were also very helpful.  This was basically the golden age of supports.  Control was highly useful.

- Post-ED and Post IO on live:  Very similary to post-ed and pre-io except now you had the rare godly character that made your support/control less useful.  The impact depended on the character.  Some were gods who invalidated you, some simply lowered your usefulness a good bit. 

- Today on Homecoming:  God characters are everywhere end game.  Survivability support is almost worthless since enough people on high level teams are soft capped that people almost never die or take significant damage even vs +4/+5 and even then they have more than enough inspirations to cover it.  Your support is of minimal value.  You are there to provide +dmg and -res primarily.  This is the worst state I've seen the value of support in since...ever really.

Edited September 24, 2020 by Ralathar44

[Leogunner]

16 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

It must be fun for those doing the nuking since they are doing it ever 20 to 30 seconds.  Do they not count?

Hypothetically, those blasters would get to experience the same feeling others feel while the melees or support holds back the mob while they recover from using a crashing nuke: they get to watch their teammate doing awesome things.

[Haijinx]

14 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

What you responded too never said they were NECESSARY.  That's a complete shift from what I expressed.  What I said was that the available useful powers you have as support actually get smaller as you level now.  Survivability assistance is not only not necessary it's not even helpful in most cases now because the average level of defense people have is so high.   Same with utility.

There are basically 4 distinct stages of support usefulness I can recall.

- Pre-ED:  Tanks did not need or really even benefit from your survival buffs, some scrappers didn't either.  Everyone else did.  Not every team had a god tank or uber scrapper on it.  Your utility and damage increasing powers varied in usefulness dependent on the team but were almost always pretty useful.  CC was useful or not dependent on whether a tank (who could control and survive all aggro) was on the team. 

- Post-ED: but Pre-IO: Survability buffs were highly valued and again, not necessary, but quite helpful.  Utility and damage increasing powers were also very helpful.  This was basically the golden age of supports.  Control was highly useful.

- Post-ED and Post IO on live:  Very similary to post-ed and pre-io except now you had the rare godly character that made your support/control less useful.  The impact depended on the character.  Some were gods who invalidated you, some simply lowered your usefulness a good bit. 

- Today on Homecoming:  God characters are everywhere end game.  Survivability support is almost worthless since enough people on high level teams are soft capped that people almost never die or take significant damage even vs +4/+5 and even then they have more than enough inspirations to cover it.  Your support is of minimal value.  You are there to provide +dmg and -res primarily.  This is the worst state I've seen the value of support in since...ever really.

This is a pretty well organized summation.  Thanks.

 

While I never play support characters and don't think along those lines, It makes perfect sense that the easier the game gets due to uber builds and incarnate abilities, the less value support has.  

[Kanil]

4 minutes ago, Leogunner said:

Hypothetically, those blasters would get to experience the same feeling others feel while the melees or support holds back the mob while they recover from using a crashing nuke: they get to watch their teammate doing awesome things.

and yet this is considered perfectly acceptable when rage is involved barring proc heavy builds

 

thats right lets open the can of rotten worms its time for the ragewar

[Wavicle]

1 hour ago, Phoenix' said:

Im sorry but if you think they sucked you propably didn't play a blaster properly 

I was exaggerating to make a point.

 

 They didn’t suck, but they are Way more fun and less prone to sucking floor since the buffs to Snipers, Nukes, and Sustain.

[Ralathar44]

36 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

I was exaggerating to make a point.

 

 They didn’t suck, but they are Way more fun and less prone to sucking floor since the buffs to Snipers, Nukes, and Sustain.

But the entire niche of Sentinels is "lower damage but less prone to sucking floor".  So once blasters get to a certain safety threshold sentinels essentially become pointless.  Blasters were supposed to be the riskier but higher damage option.

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Ralathar44 said:

But the entire niche of Sentinels is "lower damage but less prone to sucking floor".  So once blasters get to a certain safety threshold sentinels essentially become pointless.  Blasters were supposed to be the riskier but higher damage option.

And they still are. Sentinels are far tougher than Blasters.

[skoryy]

2 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Now, compare this to TW at a base level (Including Knockdown IO's for Claws and Kinetic):

That's ... whoof. 

 

Discussion aside, you're doing great work here! I might have to take a second look at my DM/WP scrapper now.

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, Leogunner said:

Hypothetically, those blasters would get to experience the same feeling others feel while the melees or support holds back the mob while they recover from using a crashing nuke: they get to watch their teammate doing awesome things.

Well sure that could be possible, but it was not my question though.  The post I was replying to said "3 blasters in the team nuking constantly every 20 - 30 secs is not fun for anyone. "  What if those blasters are having fun doing what they are doing?  Or do they not count because they do not fit into the narrative?  Your question also seems to make the assumption no one else is doing anything on the team other than moving from mob to mob watching blasters just nuke.

Edited September 24, 2020 by ShardWarrior

[arcane]

This totally-new-to-me narrative about debuff sets being weak is really making me wonder what game I’ve been playing.

[Galaxy Brain]

@Leogunner, Dark melee has a mix of survivability / Great ST damage that allows you to tear down the boss spawns rather well and with great safety, on top of Soul Drain + Buffed Shadow Maul actually letting you do work to a crowd. It overall ended up with pretty consistent results thanks to that.

 

[Troo]

 

T h i s  i s  t h e  w a y

 

[Haijinx]

16 minutes ago, arcaneholocaust said:

This totally-new-to-me narrative about debuff sets being weak is really making me wonder what game I’ve been playing.

Don't think anyone said that. 

 

[Haijinx]

48 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

And they still are. Sentinels are far tougher than Blasters.

If you never die on a Blaster it doesn't matter if the Sentinel is tougher.  

 

At least in that Team.   

 

Of course on some other team, with some other opponent the Blaster may die sometimes, then it matters again.  

[Ralathar44]

51 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

And they still are. Sentinels are far tougher than Blasters.

That doesn't matter if blasters are still tough enough to survive doing their job and not die.  If blasters are not dying on teams and sentinels are not dying on teams then who do you bring?  You bring a blaster every time because they are just as safe and deal alot more damage.

Edited September 24, 2020 by Ralathar44

[warlyx]

i would love to play elec blaster , or energy (w/o being forced to waste 1 enh slot)....but while its fun isnt worth to work on those chars.

 

same goes for my scrapper , i will love to play DB for example...and i have an alt but why waste time and money slotting that char.

 

tons of powersets need love