Game Balance & The Endgame

[Lockpick]

Surprisingly enough, I agree with some of the comments @Noyjitat is saying, although I would suggest the tone is aggressive, which dilutes the message.

 

On 9/20/2020 at 3:21 PM, Noyjitat said:

Making the same mistakes paragon made all development wasted on balancing, nerfing and dictating how others play instead of making new content, new powers, proliferating more powers to use. You guys never will learn.

 

Agreed, same with SWTOR.  Buff, buff, nerf, nerf, buff, nerf, ad infiitum. 

 

On 9/20/2020 at 6:34 PM, Noyjitat said:

This has everything to do with live because you're changing things from live that which hasn't been changed in many issues because you feel is overperforming, underperforming and broken. Making all melee cones and aoes characters smaller for dps characters but larger for the now over buffed tank is just one travesty.

The mess that's currently on closed beta is seriously disgusting and I hope you'll not ignore but take what feedback you get and really act upon it this time.

 

Powers development should instead be going to giving us new powers or proliferating npcs powers, making new powers for incarnate and tf bosses to make them more challenging in hard mode trials. You could be giving us more difficulty options and those mentioned hard mode trials and that would give us the challenge we need instead of breaking everything.

 

Game balance is extremely tricky and you will eventually find yourself doing nothing but game balance.  We have so many combinations with ATs, primary/secondary power sets, and epic/pool powers that there are an enormous number of combinations.  On the TW front, who cares if it over performs?  The set plays horribly from my perspective, so I assume people are playing it for the extra damage despite the quirky mechanics and if it is nerfed, you will see fewer players playing it.  If everyone was playing a TW/Bio character my opinion might change a bit, but they don't.  I see very few TWs when playing.

 

I agree that the focus should be on "new powers or proliferating npcs powers, making new powers for incarnate and tf bosses to make them more challenging in hard mode trials. You could be giving us more difficulty options and those mentioned hard mode trials and that would give us the challenge we need instead of breaking everything." 

 

Many people optimize their builds, then complain about how easy the game is.  Once buffs/nerfs are done they will do the same.  There is no stopping this element, so I would suggest more options for power sets and new difficulty modes are the way to go.

 

I would also like to see more rationalization of rewards and the ability to propagate content from AE to Live or at least provide rewards.  Example - There is some AE arc that is supposed to be extremely challenging, but I have not played it.  If it is hard as everyone is saying, why not make it a new type of Dev Choice that provides merit or incarnate rewards?  Shift the burden of story content to the community and focus on the easy wins like bug fixes and new power sets.

 

Of course, this doesn't mean to not buff or nerf where warranted, but it should be rare and shouldn't be a core focus.  If 90% of the population is playing TW/Bio Scrappers, ok maybe a nerf is needed.  That is not the case.

 

[Monos King]

1 hour ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Math disagrees. Debuffs require application time for each mob, draw aggro, and outside of -resist and -regen, arent very impactful at +4 content. The purple patch hits them disproportionately harder than buffs.

Well you'll notice I was talking about the "dps meta" and how the debuff sets come with -res which is exceptionally valuable in content when everyone wants more damage.  So...we agree. Most of your other concerns are already addressed in later posts as well.

 

We weren't talking about purely the viability of debuffs vs buffs; that wasn't this conversation, although it's one that we can have. They have their strengths and weaknesses. Debuffs will, for the entirety of everyone attacking said target, increase dmg, to hit, whatever; their targets can be limited in kind. Click buffs are inherently more limited in potential range, but last longer and are much more consistent when being toggles. A ST debuff lets everyone do more to one, a ST buff lets one do more to everyone. In different situations, you might value a debuff more than a buff or vice versa, and AVs are really the only enemy where it's obvious buffs are supreme. For instance, -defense is really only heavily resisted by AVs. But take a look at values.

 

 

-Defense values are monstrously greater than +to hit values, and more often than not can also stack, whereas something like overgrowth or fortitude cannot. The same applies to -tohit values compared to +def. Purple Patch does hit debuffs hard, but it's offset by larger values. The situation still decides which would be better. One issue that comes to mind with something like -tohit is it being totally undermined by effortlessly accessible soft caps in teamplay, but that is also a different discussion.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Monos King

[Patti]

I think balance changes are THE game for some people.   Don't want to yuck their yum but I hope there's no shortage on devs who want to do the sort of fun stuff that isn't battling each other over where to put a decimal point in an equation.

[BurtHutt]

First off, Devs, thanks for maintaining my fave game! I see it's a pretty thankless job. So, a big thanks to the entire team.

 

In regards to this thread, I think I'd like to see minimal changes for the proc mechanic. I got my first 50 tank and it was entirely due to the proc mechanics I could implement. It's a cool little 'x-factor' you have in the game. I like it and makes some builds exciting.

 

I have no idea how many you have on the team nor do I know your level of expertise. So, I'd prefer to see new things added with less attention towards reviewing/altering existing material. I understand there's a need to fine tune under/overperforming parts of the game. Cool. No need to revamp the rest.

 

Non-incarnate end game stuff has become easy. Fair enough. It's also not a ton of the content. I'd leave it as is and then make the future endgame content tougher and appropriate for incarnates. I would suggest having new missions added with new contacts that're tougher than what we have - so, in the style of radio missions. I saw how difficult it was for Piecemeal to put together his current arcs so maybe nothing that complex unless he has it down and can get that done a little easier now. 

 

In short/TL DR: add stuff, don't review too much existing content and try not to make significant changes to procs. 🙂

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, Ralathar44 said:

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.

Fighting only 1 to 3 things at a time is most definitely not my idea of scrapping.  😁  Any AT should easily be able to handle 1 to3 targets.  You are still much, much more reliant on clicks for survival with Regen versus something like SR or Shield, so to categorize it as "hands off" is misleading I think.  Granted QR can be nice at early levels, however once you get into IOs and Incarnates, endurance management becomes a non issue depending on power picks and IO slotting. 

[Ralathar44]

1 minute ago, Lockpick said:

Agreed, same with SWTOR.  Buff, buff, nerf, nerf, buff, nerf, ad infiitum. 

Here's the problem, all but the very most successful games are always essentially slowly dying.  If you do nothing the game gets stale and everyone quickly gets bored and leaves.  Content development takes EXCESSIVE amounts of time and resources and has a bad return ratio.  If you spend 1 year creating something your players will prolly blow through it and get bored of it in 2 months.

So what does that have to do with balancing?  Effectively balancing is quadruple in purpose.

1. Make the game more balanced by reigning in overperforming items and boosting underperforming items so that everything is a viable option.

2. Fostering community engagement.  Each new balance change provides a puzzle to solve and new discussion.  The cycle of "what is best, what is the state of X, what does X need to be better, what does Y need to be less OP?" starts all over again revitalized.

3. Extend the shelf life of a game before it becomes stale to a player.  Everyone is going to burn out eventually, but if the puzzle they want to solve keeps changing then players trend heavily towards being MORE engaged and continuing to play, not less.  That doesn't mean that some people are not put off by this and even leave over it, but rather that the number of people who leave over it is far smaller than the increase in player retention and engagement. 

4.  Essentially creates "new content".  Lets say you hate Titan Weapons because of momentum but then it's reworked where momentum is no longer a gameplay experience destroying factor for you.  You've now gained more "content".  Let's say an old set or AT receives significant changes so you play them for awhile again even though you'd effectively "retired" them by not playing them.  You've gained more "content".


Players, in general, are not fond of looking at balancing this way, but this is how it functions in the gaming industry and it's well studied.  The great grandaddy of studying this is Magic the Gathering and alot of modern game balancing/design considerations are directly or indirectly from their work.  Identifying player types and catering to different playertypes with different content, the Jedi curve/Mana curve of balancing within +/- 15% of a central power target with some cards intentionally a little to strong or weak, etc.

Players whine and gripe and complain and etc, but ultimately what matters isn't any of that.  What matters is "does it make them keep playing/spending/etc?".  And properly dne the constant blaancing adjustment cycle is proven and pedigreed at helping retain player interest, play time, and enjoyment for much longer than simply focusing on new content alone.

 

14 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

On the TW front, who cares if it over performs?  The set plays horribly from my perspective, so I assume people are playing it for the extra damage despite the quirky mechanics and if it is nerfed, you will see fewer players playing it.  If everyone was playing a TW/Bio character my opinion might change a bit, but they don't.  I see very few TWs when playing.

The more super another power set or class feels, the less super yours feels and the more "unfair" the game feels.  That's just how folks work and think.   And it has direct impacts too.  If content is designed for the average power level and someone in an OP character joins, often you don't have very much fun because you don't get to do much or feel useful.  So that's a direct impact.  Good example here is everyone who has all this defense at high level, in almost all content they no longer need anyone to keep them safe with buffs/debuffs and so anyone who enjoyed keeping allies safe no longer has that enjoyment.  There is only so much possibility space for fun and enjoyment on a team regarding the mechanical (ie balance related) aspects of play and if someone takes up more of that "fun budget" because they can do everything and make you feel unnecessary then you receive less.

[ShardWarrior]

1 minute ago, Ralathar44 said:

1. Make the game more balanced by reigning in overperforming items and boosting underperforming items so that everything is a viable option.

Were this true, we would be seeing far less variety in ATs and power picks.  Posted metrics and my own personal experience show differently. 

6 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

If content is designed for the average power level and someone in an OP character joins, often you don't have very much fun because you don't get to do much or feel useful.  So that's a direct impact.  Good example here is everyone who has all this defense at high level, in almost all content they no longer need anyone to keep them safe with buffs/debuffs and so anyone who enjoyed keeping allies safe no longer has that enjoyment. 

While true for some, this is not universally true for everyone.  There were back in the day and are today a great many support class players who enjoy being able to shift their focus toward more offense instead of pure defense later in the game.  That is also "new content" for them.  There is also nothing stopping anyone from socializing to find like minded players with whom to team up with and enjoy all the content the way you all like.  This is one of the great beauties of this game in that it caters to a very wide array of players.  That is a very good thing in my opinion.  If we are to be nerfed down to the point where we absolutely require others to help us cross the street all for the sake of "balance", I think it detracts from the superhero theme.

[Ralathar44]

16 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Fighting only 1 to 3 things at a time is most definitely not my idea of scrapping.  😁  Any AT should easily be able to handle 1 to3 targets.  You are still much, much more reliant on clicks for survival with Regen versus something like SR or Shield, so to categorize it as "hands off" is misleading I think. 

Practically in a team though that's exactly what you are doing.  If you have a tank or brute then you're only facing 1-3 targets at a time of +2-+4 level.  If you've got no tank/brute you should still be aggro splitting between those capable of dealing with it.   As a scrapper those targets are usually bosses and lts that hit hard enough to kill squishies in just a few attacks.  But if you're expecting to tank large groups of mobs....honestly that's not the role scrapper is supposed to have and being able to do so effectively is the sign of a problem.

If you believe a scrapper should be able to solo an 8 man group then we're going to have a clear disagreement in where the power ceiling should be.  Even soling a +3/4 mission is prolly a bit much since you're essentially saying +3/8 is a 3 person job when that's intended to be a full team difficulty setting.  I know that might seem weird to you due to where we are in power creep allowing end game melee/sent/blasters to solo excessive difficulty content, but that's how I look at it.
 

16 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Granted QR can be nice at early levels, however once you get into IOs and Incarnates, endurance management becomes a non issue depending on power picks and IO slotting. 

If endurance management becomes a non-issues depending on "buttload of variables" then endurance management is not a non-issue :P.  Also what % of characters even make it to 50 and incarnates?  City of Heroes is a very alt heavy game.  Look at the commentary on TW.  TW eventually gains momentum with powers and accuracy and gets alot faster.  Most people who don't like it never got that far.  Stone Armor ironically has this problem at both ends.  The early game is unattractive due to the lack of mobility from rooted (seriously they could reduce that slow by 50% and it would be mainly a QOL buff...rooted is a strong buff but rooted SUCKED to deal with) and the late game is unattractive due to invalidating your costume, debuffing your damage, and invalidating your other skills.  If we looked at stone armor at a 50/IO/Incarnate level only you'd miss a significant part of what makes stone armor the experience it is.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Ralathar44

[Lockpick]

 

6 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

Here's the problem, all but the very most successful games are always essentially slowly dying.  If you do nothing the game gets stale and everyone quickly gets bored and leaves.  Content development takes EXCESSIVE amounts of time and resources and has a bad return ratio.

This is exactly why I stated to use AE to create new content.  I really don't think people (The Live Devs, the current Dev team, or the players) are realizing how powerful AE can be for the game.  Probably because it has a reputation for being mainly for farming.  We have a great community of people that are very creative.  We could use AE to do things like:

 

• Story arc of the month with titles and badge awards
• Create incarnate content with incarnate rewards
• Create story missions with merit rewards
• Create new task forces
• Create hard mode content
• Create new badges to go along with the created content

All of these things can be done with some minor tweaks and some time commitment by volunteers.

 

11 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

The more super another power set or class feels, the less super yours feels and the more "unfair" the game feels.

 

Maybe some people feel this way, but I have a hard time worrying about someone else.  I am interested in what I find fun.  When I first came back I was on a DP tear playing DP on various characters to find one to be my main.  No one is going to say DP is OP.

 

Now I am on a stalker kick.  I could care less if a TW/Bio scrapper can clear mobs before I can in a mission.  I can find ways to benefit a team no matter what AT I am playing and at the end of the day it is about enjoying the experience.

 

On another note, I did want to mention that I really appreciate the Dev team bringing back this game.  It was a horrible experience when it shut down and I could never find a replacement.  Extremely happy it is back and wanted to express my gratitude.

 

 

[ShardWarrior]

2 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

Practically in a team though that's exactly what you are doing.  If you have a tank or brute then you're only facing 1-3 targets at a time of +2-+4 level.  If you've got no tank/brute you should still be aggro splitting between those capable of dealing with it.   As a scrapper those targets are usually bosses and lts that hit hard enough to kill squishies in just a few attacks.  But if you're expecting to tank large groups of mobs....honestly that's not the role scrapper is supposed to have and being able to do so effectively is the sign of a problem.

Calling a scrapper who can handle more than 3 targets "a problem" is a gross exaggeration.  Again, every AT should be able to handle at least 3 targets at once.  If we are going to start nerfing down everything so the "holy trinity" is required for every bit of content, I think you will see this game die very, very fast.  I have said this many times before - the levels of power players can achieve, especially with incarnates, is not the problem.  The problem is there is little to no content that is designed for and balanced around high-performing builds and teams in mind.

 

4 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

If endurance management becomes a non-issues depending on "buttload of variables" then endurance management is not a non-issue :P. 

Making end management a non-issue does not require a "buttload of variables", simply proper slotting and selective power choices.  Visit the various build forums.  Plenty of good options there.

[Lockpick]

7 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

If you believe a scrapper should be able to solo an 8 man group then we're going to have a clear disagreement in where the power ceiling should be.  Even soling a +3/4 mission is prolly a bit much since you're essentially saying +3/8 is a 3 person job when that's intended to be a full team difficulty setting.  I know that might seem weird to you due to where we are in power creep allowing end game melee/sent/blasters to solo excessive difficulty content, but that's how I look at it.

 

You have your opinion, ShardWarrior has his, I have mine, and many others have their opinion.  You will likely have a hard time getting consensus on what should be the number of mobs a player can take on.  And that's okay because everyone should play the way they want.  That is why it is more important to focus on varying levels of content with varying levels of difficulty as opposed to focusing on buffinf/nerfing.  If you have enough content with varying levels of difficulty then everyone can play the mode they find fun.

 

 

[Ralathar44]

5 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Were this true, we would be seeing far less variety in ATs and power picks.  Posted metrics and my own personal experience show differently. 

Metrics are far more reliable.  Humans can't even remember what cars are on the road we see every day.  We buy a new car and suddenly our car is everywhere.  But the care didn't change in prevalence, we just started noticing it more.  Even worse people divide themselves readily into camps over even the most trivial stuff, look up the minimal group paradigm.  So once folks form an opinion they seek others of like mind and start subconsciously identifying with them and confirming their own biases.

We quite frankly suck at observing the world around us accurately  lol.

 

9 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

There were back in the day and are today a great many support class players who enjoy being able to shift their focus toward more offense instead of pure defense later in the game. 

I mean you could say that about anything.  A great many people enjoy claws/sr tanks.  We have enough people playing those across our large number distribution (playerbase) that it's a true statement.  But what % of support players like/don't like/don't care about that state of the game?  Old school CoH had a huge amount of fire tanks that enjoyed soloing +4/8 missions, unfortunately that kind of stuff basically invalidated the ability of many other people to have fun.  ED was a harsh blow but it blew wide open what you could bring to a team and be effective.  Not "effective", not "viable", but an equal member of the team.

Because anyone could make those kind of "a great many statements all day" and all it really means is "this is what I think/want".  This is part of why metrics are so important.

[ScarySai]

1 minute ago, Ralathar44 said:

Metrics are far more reliable.  Humans can't even remember what cars are on the road we see every day.  We buy a new car and suddenly our car is everywhere.  But the care didn't change in prevalence, we just started noticing it more.  Even worse people divide themselves readily into camps over even the most trivial stuff, look up the minimal group paradigm.  So once folks form an opinion they seek others of like mind and start subconsciously identifying with them and confirming their own biases.

We quite frankly suck at observing the world around us accurately  lol.

The human element is still important to make decisions that cold logic and programming are unable to make. This is partly why game designers don't have to fear AI taking their jobs for quite a few decades from now, if at all. If cold logic determined everything in CoH, it'd be a pretty shit game. Many mistakes were adapted into features and many strange outliers exist that enhance the game, and this is at least partially true for most good games, that something isn't logical' yet improves the game.

 

I can't say I understand where you're getting at here, unless it's an attempt to say 'metrics are never wrong', which is wrong, by the way.

[Kanil]

29 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

 

The more super another power set or class feels, the less super yours feels and the more "unfair" the game feels.  That's just how folks work and think.   And it has direct impacts too.  If content is designed for the average power level and someone in an OP character joins, often you don't have very much fun because you don't get to do much or feel useful.  So that's a direct impact.  Good example here is everyone who has all this defense at high level, in almost all content they no longer need anyone to keep them safe with buffs/debuffs and so anyone who enjoyed keeping allies safe no longer has that enjoyment.  There is only so much possibility space for fun and enjoyment on a team regarding the mechanical (ie balance related) aspects of play and if someone takes up more of that "fun budget" because they can do everything and make you feel unnecessary then you receive less.

now explain fire blast

is it because everyone is already fire blast

 

 

[ShardWarrior]

9 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

You have your opinion, ShardWarrior has his, I have mine, and many others have their opinion.  You will likely have a hard time getting consensus on what should be the number of mobs a player can take on.  And that's okay because everyone should play the way they want.  That is why it is more important to focus on varying levels of content with varying levels of difficulty as opposed to focusing on buffinf/nerfing.  If you have enough content with varying levels of difficulty then everyone can play the mode they find fun.

This is spot on.  Here is a thing most people who cry for balance and nerfs seem to always neglect - the game could get balanced and homogenized to the point of every AT and power set doing the exact same damage numbers and there will still be players who are just better than you and will out-perform you every time.  I cannot agree more that content with varying levels of difficulty is simply the better option. 

Edited September 22, 2020 by ShardWarrior

[Ralathar44]

2 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

 

You have your opinion, ShardWarrior has his, I have mine, and many others have their opinion.  You will likely have a hard time getting consensus on what should be the number of mobs a player can take on.  And that's okay because everyone should play the way they want.  That is why it is more important to focus on varying levels of content with varying levels of difficulty as opposed to focusing on buffinf/nerfing.  If you have enough content with varying levels of difficulty then everyone can play the mode they find fun.

 

 

I agree with this as a general concept.  The problem is that one AT/power set having the capability to do something removes things from the possibility space of people they team with.  If I control an entire map's aggro on a tank and can survive it then defense/survivability buffs/debuffs become uneeded.  If I can perma hold an entire map of enemies with my controller no other controllers/doms are needed.  ETC.  This was the pre-ED situation and it's not an opinion, this was the verifiable history of the game.

ED was an exaggerated version of the problem and We are not to back to pre-ED power levels yet, but we have been steadily moving in that direction.  IO'd out incarnate tanks/brutes are almost back to the same power level of pre-ED tanks, hampered mainly by aggro and AOE caps atm.  However the same cannot be said of every AT.  Group damage and survivability has skyrocketed with the additional of sentinels and the repeated blaster buffs.  If we decide to bring up MM/defender/corruptor/dom/controllers to the power level of brutes/tankers/blasters/scrappers then honestly I don't know what content in the game would be anything more than dynasty warriors lol.  And the irony is that the people who farm up their incarnates still spend most of their time in non-incarnate difficulty missions.

[ScarySai]

I struggle to consider fire blast OP, knowing the history of blasters and corruptors and how they both used to be glass cannons. Furthermore, It's supposed to do the most damage, that's it's -bonus.-

 

Hell, other sets can pretty damn close to it. Sonic, Psy, Elec, AR, rad and DP need more help, if anything - not fire getting a slap on the wrist. People expecting fire to get nuked because it does well probably shouldn't hold their breath, I doubt that's going to be the outcome of this. 

Edited September 22, 2020 by ScarySai

[ShardWarrior]

4 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

I agree with this as a general concept.  The problem is that one AT/power set having the capability to do something removes things from the possibility space of people they team with.  If I control an entire map's aggro on a tank and can survive it then defense/survivability buffs/debuffs become uneeded.  If I can perma hold an entire map of enemies with my controller no other controllers/doms are needed.  ETC. 

This does not explain the variety of ATs and power sets being created and played though.  Were this absolutely true, we would see nothing but tanks, brutes and scrappers and no one would team for anything.  Reality and posted metrics say otherwise.

 

5 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

And the irony is that the people who farm up their incarnates still spend most of their time in non-incarnate difficulty missions.

Given the lack of incarnate level content, are you surprised by this?

[Kanil]

1 minute ago, ScarySai said:

I struggle to consider titan weapons OP, knowing the history of scrappers and tankers. It's supposed to do the most damage, that's it's -bonus.-

 

Hell, other sets can pretty damn close to it. Energy melee, broadsword, staff, MA and dark melee need more help, if anything - not TW getting a slap on the wrist.

agreed

[Doomrider]

Just now, ScarySai said:

I struggle to consider fire blast OP, knowing the history of blasters and corruptors. It's supposed to do the most damage, that's it's -bonus.-

 

Hell, other sets can pretty damn close to it. Sonic, Psy, Elec, AR, rad and DP need more help, if anything - not fire getting a slap on the wrist.

The reason Fire Blast is not OP is the same reason that makes it the outlier when damage is the main consideration when choosing blast sets

While it's damage values are high due to the added dot inherent to most of its powers and likewise the damage type being less resisted, unlike other blast sets, Fire blast is not gated behind slow animation times.  You can add damage procs to many of the other blast sets, more so than you can with Fire Blast,  you can min/max to your hearts content, drown your build in global recharge but you simply can't change animation times. This will also be the stopping point for many sets when it comes to Damage performance.

I know you know this Sai, I just figured i'd add to it. 

I feel like animation times are seldom talked about when Fire Blast is brought up in regards to damage performance.

 

[Ralathar44]

9 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

This does not explain the variety of ATs and power sets being created and played though.  Were this absolutely true, we would see nothing but tanks, brutes and scrappers and no one would team for anything.  Reality and posted metrics say otherwise.

 

Given the lack of incarnate level content, are you surprised by this?

"Nothing but" is an exagerration that puts a narrative in my mouth I never expressed.  But we are well on our way to your hyperbolic version.  Look at how silly the differential in playtime is :D.   You chose a poor argument in this case since reality and metrics actually overwhelmingly support what I stated.

I also want to be clear that I have no problem with Incarnates playing lower level content.  However they re not appropriately scaled down to that content, they are more powerful to such a degree that it breaks that content.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Ralathar44

[ScarySai]

4 minutes ago, Doomrider said:

I know you know this Sai, I just figured i'd add to it. 

No problem there, you're on point - I just forget sometimes that people don't consider that. Fire's DPA is unquestionably insane, though I don't think I'd lean on a nerf to fire as the lesson to learn from that.

 

I think a lot of otherwise slow powers could use a bit of a speed boost, on that note.

[Ralathar44]

1 minute ago, ScarySai said:

No problem there, you're on point - I just forget sometimes that people don't consider that. Fire's DPA is unquestionably insane, though I don't think I'd lean on a nerf to fire as the lesson to learn from that.

 

I think a lot of otherwise slow powers could use a bit of a speed boost, on that note.

From a feels perspective I agree with you that alot of animations need speeding up.  Some animation's speed makes me die inside.  Heck, even the minor hitch of re-draw really bugs me.  But if damage is not adjusted accordingly then this just results in massive buffs and there are already enough teams where even high level enemies just evaporate.

[Lockpick]

1 minute ago, Ralathar44 said:

"Nothing but" is an exagerration that puts a narrative in my mouth I never expressed.  But we are well on our way to your hyperbolic version.  Look at how silly the differential in playtime is :D.   You chose a poor argument in this case since reality and metrics actually overwhelmingly support what I stated.

I also want to be clear that I have no problem with Incarnates playing lower level content.  However they re not appropriately scaled down to that content, they are more powerful to such a degree that it breaks that content.

 

I'm not sure what you are trying to show with the chart.  What does this data mean really?  If you parse the data between AE content and non-AE content I would guess you will find a significant amount of the time played on Brutes is AE and more specifically AE farming.

 

If you throw out the Brute numbers I would say that looking at the numbers seems logical to me.  They seems to correspond with the number of posts in the AT sections (somewhat) which might indicate a level of popularity.

 

I'm actually surprised Controllers are higher than Scrappers and Masterminds are as high as they are.

[Doomrider]

6 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

 Fire's DPA is unquestionably insane, though I don't think I'd lean on a nerf to fire as the lesson to learn from that.

 

Nor would I really. The clearest example of this however, or at least the first example that comes to mind is comparing say Blaze vs Cosmic Burst.

Blasters Blaze dealing 170 base damage over 1 second vs Cosmic Bursts 132 base damage over 2.07 seconds. 

Not only does Blaze deal naturally more base damage than Cosmic, as it should per it's inherent side effect but Cosmic Burst is dealing 77% of the same damage Blaze is dealing, but in just over twice the time.
Obviously this 1 for 1 comparison is only a small piece of the puzzle but to some this would almost seem like Blaze is double dipping in performance vectors, OR rather, that Cosmic Burst's damage should remain the same but the animation speed should be adjusted so the chasm in performance is not so great.
 

Edited September 22, 2020 by Doomrider