Game Balance & The Endgame

[ScarySai]

7 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

True, but there's no good way of saving those bases in-game.

If there's nothing stopping you from giving the dev command the axe without altering anything else, why not? How many people actually use the command 'legitimately', and how much of an inconvenience would walking to the portal really be for those people?

 

As for saving base codes, there's always notepad.

 

This isn't really power balance related, either way - so I'll leave it there.

Edited September 22, 2020 by ScarySai

[Bossk_Hogg]

20 hours ago, Doomrider said:

 

Post the -to hit, speed, recharge, etc section and you can see the issue. Resist and damage debuffs are fine as they follow different rules. 

[Ralathar44]

5 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

Given that most of the healing in Scrapper Regen comes from click heals, I am curious how you are defining "hands off"?

When on a scrapper normally I'm not doing much in the way of tanking.  I take incidental aggro perhaps but mainly the aggro of 1-3 things at a time.  Early game your passive regen is often enough, depending on your melee set (knockdown/up, disorient, self defense buff, etc) to take on lt's or bosses.  And if you take a few bad hits you click your heal.  Integration is toggle and forget.  You eventually add dull pain but honestly that's not even needed until like 30+.  You're a regen scrapper and nobody expects you to tank aggro so you are free to just kill things.

Meanwhile you don't have to constantly worry about endo management from running toggles + attacking.  You don't have to worry about typed damage or defense.  Because it's not your job to tank damage, nobody expects it off you, and everything is dealt with via the same 2 heal clickies.

So I think it's more that expectations and your approach is different allowing you to just focus on scrapping and then rarely hitting your heal button.

[WindDemon21]

30 minutes ago, parabola said:

I think we all get that you are very attached to this particular combination. But don't you agree that being able to provide 32% defence, to absolutely everything, for everyone around you including yourself, is a bit much? Yes it takes two powers to do it but even tanks have to invest more power picks and many more slots to achieve defences with many more holes in them.

As one specific AT, with one specific primary, having to choose one specific epic power, no I don't.

[ScarySai]

It really depends, because in any situation where the time character isn't the only support would it matter, and that's assuming your team isn't also IO/incarned out.

 

If the fact they are able to boost the team that much is the issue, I would like to see maybe that aspect becoming unaffected by the boost while keeping the caster's own personal buff at max power.

 

Either way, my time characters won't be bothered too much by the worst possible case scenario, so I don't think the nerfs will be that bad for most well made time characters in the end.

[WindDemon21]

3 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

It really depends, because in any situation where the time character isn't the only support would it matter, and that's assuming your team isn't also IO/incarned out.

 

If the fact they are able to boost the team that much is the issue, I would like to see maybe that aspect becoming unaffected by the boost while keeping the caster's own personal buff at max power.

 

Either way, my time characters won't be bothered too much by the worst possible case scenario, so I don't think the nerfs will be that bad for most well made time characters in the end.

And for a Force fielder trying to get the max defense on a team, will get screwed in the meantime. If anything, this should not roll out until FF gets fixed. IE, ad absorb proccing to dispersion bubble, detention field being a hold instead, providing DDR, etc.

 

But also the part of that being about the only useful part to powerboost in the long run. If it's going to lose that, it definitely at least need to be an auto power that boosts your stuff on the back end.

Edited September 22, 2020 by WindDemon21

[Ralathar44]

2 hours ago, Judasace said:

This is a 16 year old game with a few thousand player, run on a private server surviving on donations. The game is used as a sandbox for people to play superheroes...the idea that this is some AAA live service game that needs balancing, nerfing, etc. is laughable. Stuff should be left alone. Want to make new stuff? Great. Want to f\get caught up in fiddling with the old stuff? all it will do is drive people away...it's not like new people are showing up or ever going to show up, just look at concurrent user numbers, account numbers, etc. There's been a 65% drop since HC went live.

 

Nerfs in 16 year old cancelled MMO.../smdh.

"Given the opportunity players will optimize the fun out of a game".

Nerfs are important to maintaining fun too.  Having a balance of nerfs and buffs is like having a balanced diet and exercise.  Yeah, we'd all rather just pig out on whatever and not exercise but you still pay a cost for that.  The cost just happens later instead of right now.  A game that continues to make buffs but does not make nerfs will eventually nerf the fun for basically everyone.  Good example: if everyone becomes powerful enough not to need supports or CC or anything except kills...you're effectively nerfing everyone who does support/CC/utility even if no direct nerf happens.


There will always be a large drop in playerbase when a game goes live.  That's literally normal.  Only the most hugely successful games grow significantly after launch.  95% of games, good and bad both, will lose the majority of their playerbase within a year of launch and then slowly lose more players over time after that.

[Apparition]

3 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

And for a Force fielder trying to get the max defense on a team, will get screwed in the meantime. If anything, this should not roll out until FF gets fixed. IE, ad absorb proccing to dispersion bubble, detention field being a hold instead, providing DDR, etc.

 

Uh... my Force Field Corruptor gives 43% defense to everything to the whole team on his own, without Power Boost or PBU.  If the other player's defense can't cover the 15% gap for Incarnate softcap, that is his or her own problem.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Apparition

[arcane]

I’m pretty sure force field doesn’t need power boost to give everyone excessive defense? Or do I play in another universe.

[Apparition]

Just now, arcaneholocaust said:

I’m pretty sure force field doesn’t need power boost to give everyone excessive defense? Or do I play in another universe.

 

As I posted above, it most certainly does not.

[ScarySai]

4 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

Nerfs are important to maintaining fun too.  Having a balance of nerfs and buffs is like having a balanced diet and exercise. 

Nerfs are only important when they are necessary. Nerfing the top just to switch things up would be a terrible design choice.

 

Trying to push your own design vision over what the players want is also terrible for your game. Look at World of Warcraft once Ion took over, that moron somehow managed to take all of the depth out of the game and surprise-surprise - WoW's numbers are at an all-time low.

[WindDemon21]

3 minutes ago, Apparition said:

 

Uh... my Force Field Corruptor gives 43% defense to everything to the whole team on his own, without Power Boost or PBU.  If the other player's defense can't cover the 15% gap for Incarnate softcap, that is his or her own problem.

(11.25+7.5+2.63)x1.54= 32.93 (and only when they're in dispersion too which is another part of it), not sure how you're getting 43%.

[Ralathar44]

15 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Post the -to hit, speed, recharge, etc section and you can see the issue. Resist and damage debuffs are fine as they follow different rules. 

Someone did that earlier with -to-hit but for some strange reason they used a level 52 AV, which would only be a +1 and only have a 10% reduction from the purple patch.  And they used a enhanced out Hurricane and Blackstar + other dark blasts, which is hardly representative of the values normal to-hit debuffs get and certainly not representative of supportive power set debuffing.

The problem is +4/+5.  +1/+2/+3 everything still has a decent effect.  Level shifted incarnates going into non-incarnate content is understood to be broken characters going into content not designed for them.  If you join a level 50 PI team as a level 45 for example you will be level 49 facing level 54s and your debuffs are not going to do anything but your buffs will still be very effective and thanks to all the stacked leadership you'll be able to hit and kill just fine too.

[Ralathar44]

7 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Nerfs are only important when they are necessary. Nerfing the top just to switch things up would be a terrible design choice.

If you have 2 out of 16 sets overperforming by a significant margin and all other sets are handling content just fine then you nerf those two sets....you don't leave them alone and you don't buff everything up to their level.  That's literally just how balancing works.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Ralathar44

[Apparition]

3 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

(11.25+7.5+2.63)x1.54= 32.93 (and only when they're in dispersion too which is another part of it), not sure how you're getting 43%.

 

In my specific build = Deflection Shield gives 18.07% to S/L/Melee.  Insulation Shield gives 18.07% to E/N/F/C/Ranged/AoE.  Dispersion Bubble gives 12.89% to everything.  Total of 30.96% to everything so far.  Maneuvers gives an additional 4.49% to everything.  Total of 35.45% defense to everything.  Support Radial Embodiment Hybrid gives an additional 8% defense to everything.  Grand total of 43.45% defense to everything.

[WindDemon21]

1 minute ago, Apparition said:

 

In my specific build = Deflection Shield gives 18.07% to S/L/Melee.  Insulation Shield gives 18.07% to E/N/F/C/Ranged/AoE.  Dispersion Bubble gives 12.89% to everything.  Total of 30.96% to everything so far.  Maneuvers gives an additional 4.49% to everything.  Total of 35.45% defense to everything.  Support Radial Embodiment Hybrid gives an additional 8% defense to everything.  Grand total of 43.45% defense to everything.

Support isn't perma, and incarnates should never be looked at when looking at individual sets balance.

[ScarySai]

9 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

That's literally just how balancing works.

It "literally" isn't and is much more nuanced than that.

 

And considering how wrong you were about various elements of the game a few pages ago, I'm inclined to take your opinion with the minimum amount of salt I can spare.

[Apparition]

1 minute ago, WindDemon21 said:

Support isn't perma, and incarnates should never be looked at when looking at individual sets balance.

 

Even if you don't include Support, that's still 35.45% defense to everything.  Most people are running around with softcap defense on their own.  Neither Power Boost nor PBU are needed.

[WindDemon21]

Just now, Apparition said:

 

Even if you don't include Support, that's still 35.45% defense to everything.  Most people are running around with softcap defense on their own.  Neither Power Boost nor PBU are needed.

you're still factoring incarantes from the alpha. And you just went against yourself, if you're saying it's not needed, then it's not OP, so you're giving even more reason why a nerf to it isn't needed.

[ScarySai]

1 minute ago, Apparition said:

 

Even if you don't include Support, that's still 35.45% defense to everything.  Most people are running around with softcap defense on their own.  Neither Power Boost nor PBU are needed.

And if we talk leagues, there's pretty much nothing that can balance those. All it takes is two characters of really any given support set to make every man in the league an unkillable murder machine, and that's assuming nobody is using IOs.

Edited September 22, 2020 by ScarySai

[arcane]

Just want to add to the force field discussion thatI consider myself quite a rebel when it comes to not playing the defense soft cap meta, but not bringing my own ~15-30% defense on every toon sounds like major slacking.

[ScarySai]

Wasn't Paragon planning to add absorb to FF? 

[Ralathar44]

22 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

It "literally" isn't and is much more nuanced than that.

 

And considering how wrong you were about various elements of the game a few pages ago, I'm inclined to take your opinion with the minimum amount of salt I can spare.

Well prepare to be upset when said sets are nerfed or adjusted as expected then.  Expecting them not to be is like walking outside on a rainy day and expecting not to get wet.

Mudsling all you want because I forgot that the debuff rules for CoH are not consistent.  I play other games too.  If a simple mistake invalidates someone's entire opinion then none of us have valid opinions.  -res is subject only to purple patch, -def is subject to AV resist power and purple patch, -dmg is subject only to purple patch but -to-hit is subject to AV resist power and purple patch.  As well as a buncha people judging experiences on their level shifted incarnates in content not designed for them instead of the +4/+5 non-incarnate characters face in high level zones reducing their debuffs (all of them) to 48%/30% of their original values.

A simple 10% to-hit debuff becomes 6.5%/4.8%/3% debuff against +4/+5 and a single +1 level shift literally makes your debuff over 50% more effective.  So a level 45 sidekicked into a level 50 team is level 49 vs level 54s (+5).  A natural 50 is vs +4 and a level shifted incarnate is vs +3.  That same debuff would be 3% for the sidekicked character, 4.8% for the natty 50, and 6.5% for the shifted incarnate.  The incarnate literally has over 100% the debuff effectiveness compared to the sidekicked character.  Meanwhile buffs are 100% as effective for all 3 characters. (level wise)

Edited September 22, 2020 by Ralathar44

[ScarySai]

10 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

literally

 

[Ralathar44]

3 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

 

It's literally literarily accurate in the last post I made :D.  Figuratively speaking.  Nice deflection into grammar policing and/or ad hominem (depending on intent) though.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Ralathar44