Game Balance & The Endgame

[golstat2003]

2 minutes ago, Troo said:

The game is easy to start but has a lot to learn for new players (but it doesn't block fun). It ebbs and flows a little while leveling.

 

Later in the game it does get too easy if someone is leveraging accolades, set bonuses, incarnates, p2w, base bonuses, etc.

 

However if someone is using maybe 2 of these it not 'too easy'. If they are only using 1 it's definitely not 'too easy'.

 

More specifically if someone is using SOs only I would not expect them to find iTrials easy. At all.

 

And the HC devs have already said in threads before this one that the main balance point of the game isn't changing from SOs. (Hence all the work on easily updating SOs that they have in beta).

 

If that has changed they can let us know . . . but their recent work tells me that hasn't at all changed.

Edited September 27, 2020 by golstat2003

[Haijinx]

1 minute ago, Troo said:

The game is easy to start but has a lot to learn for new players (but it doesn't block fun). It ebbs and flows a little while leveling.

 

Later in the game it does get too easy if someone is leveraging accolades, set bonuses, incarnates, p2w, base bonuses, etc.

 

However if someone is using maybe 2 of these it not 'too easy'. If they are only using 1 it's definitely not 'too easy'.

 

That's cool if you think that way. 

 

I was just saying the way you quoted me it looked like I was saying, "The game is easy, but not too easy."  as my opinion.  That is not the case.  That's all. 

 

 

[Naraka]

12 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

Oh the game is hella easy. I just like it that way. When I want to play a harder mmo or game I play anything else. But nowadays I often DON'T want to play a harder game.

Hmm, have you been introduced of the difficulty setting that can make the game easier?

[Ralathar44]

4 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

The way paragon worked was that if it was in beta it more than likely was NOT going to change much. 

More than likely the game wouldn't have been canceled out of nowhere, 2020 wouldn't have been a garbage fire, streakbreaker code wouldn't have been needed to stop 5 95% hits ina  row from missing and then getting killed by consecutive 5% hit chances, more than likely a new AT wouldn't be added to a sunset game after many many years, more than likely these private servers would have never existed for so long before randomly coming to light and shocking everyone, etc.

Unfortunately whether in game dev or life more than likely is more than likely wrong a significant amount of the time :P.  Life is full of those less than likelies and you're playing one of them :p.

[Wavicle]

10 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

I can't say if their process was different or not since i didn't work on their team internally.  We only know the player facing stuff.  However as a rule I'm not going to treat any pre-live content as finalized either in value or direction.  I'm not a predictor of the future or potential alternate pasts either one and I'm going to keep it that way.  Anything that didn't actually happen but was only planned remains speculative as per normal.

Similarly I wouldn't have predicted the game's shutdown and neither did the devs.  I said it earlier on a positive note favoring the HC staff and I'll say it now on a more neutral note.  The ticket to the future is always blank.  And I'm not trying to take shots at yall btw, yall have done your best to follow the legacy and I'm satisified enough with what has been done.  Indeed if I was not interested or have faith I wouldn't be here no?

That's all fine. I think we were just making a very specific point that i24 was NOT, in any way shape or form, an HC issue. It was designed, tested, and implemented 100% by Paragon Studios back in 2012, long before HC or SCORE existed.

[Lockpick]

1 hour ago, Naraka said:

Why?  Why have you literally dismissed an option?  Why is you dismissing this option valid but someone not dismissing certain difficulty options not valid?  Just because some people will whine about something is hardly a reason, no more impactful than ignoring balance all together.  I mean, I hear the Cake server has a lot more shinies and stronger builds and options there, why haven't you gone over to them?

 

I haven't dismissed it as a partial option.  I think balancing makes sense if you have outliers, but I think this game for the most part is fine as is.  My point is that when you balance you are always going to have some happy people and you will make some unhappy.  Why not look at options that might make everyone happy first?

 

On another note, it is incredibly insulting for you to suggest I leave because I am making suggestions that I think are for the betterment of the game.  Why would I leave?  I am incredibly happy with the game as is and have spent a ton of time playing here.   I am not the one calling for wholesale changes that are going to affect everyone.  When I want an easy experience I can have it, when I want a challenging experience I can have it, I can solo when I want, and I can team when I want.  IMO this is the best MMO ever because I can play how I want when I want.

 

My suggestions have no cons that I can see and provides new content for everyone.  It seems to me like it should be a win for everyone where wholesale balancing is going to result in some winners and some losers.

 

38 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

I have a hard time understanding people who don't think the game is easy. 

 

I do I suppose get it when they say its easy but not "too easy"

 

As for seeing who has mob stomping builds its fairly easy to get a anecdotal sampling.  Just start looking at the info card of all the level 50s you come across and look at how many set bonuses they have.  

 

Like I said above I play with high end builds and I don't think the game is to easy.  I'm not looking for another job.  I want my game experience to be enjoyable.    If I want to do something challenging I can find challenging things to do.  Maybe you are just a better gamer than me.  All my 50s have high end builds and on some of them I can do +4/8 if I am careful and some I can't and I am fine with that.

 

34 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

I have said that.  And I have explained why.  

 

Its barely a game at the level even a 300 Million Inf build plays at.  

 

If you can spend an entire task force where you have a 95% chance to hit and a 5% to be hit, the mechanics have failed. 

 

It sounds like you have a concern with the mechanics then and not the content or the mechanics make the content trivial in your mind.  I don't suppose my suggestion would help with that then.  You would have to change some fundamental mechanics of the game I guess. 

 

[golstat2003]

21 minutes ago, Naraka said:

Hmm, have you been introduced of the difficulty setting that can make the game easier?

I don't need the game to be easier or harder. It's fine to me as is.

[Haijinx]

2 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

 

Maybe you are just a better gamer than me. 

 

lol.

 

I doubt that.  I just charge into the bad guys and push buttons.  

 

I don't even prioritize targets unless its like a sapper or a ITF Surgeon or something.  

[ABlueThingy]

55 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

 

I know in at least one case because I asked the question specifically and was told no by one of the advocates to make the game harder.  I also asked again in that post you quoted.  No one has provided a reasonable answer (IMO) as to why balancing the entire game is a better option than focusing on players creating hard mode content.

I thought I did a pretty good job of it but I can try again.

 

"Hard mode" is a vauge term, there's lots of ways you could make the game "Harder" but not many that would actually solve the issue we've been trying to articulate.

 

The game is too easy > Because there's too much AoE dmg and players can achieve max def/rech on their own > this makes some roles, specifically buff/debuff classes and non-ranged/AoE dmg classes and control based classes much less useful. =/= the game needs to be harder

 

Like, broadly I think most people would like the option to make the game harder to challenge themselves in new and interesting ways, not against that. I'd love that. But that's besides the point.  I don't want to make the game harder for the sake of it.  I want parity between all the powersets and ATs.  Or something closer then what we have now.  That might entail making the game harder all around.  But if you can find a way to carve a niche for everyone in the end game, max level content(and the resultant trickle down to the rest of the game) without nerfing AoE damge, the ability to Soft Cap, mega stacking +rech.  I mean. I'm listening?

 

55 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

One side wants to rely on the Devs to do wholesale balance changes impacting the entire player community and I would prefer to focus on solutions that have no negative impact to the entire player community, but provides new player created content that will provide new content for everyone.

 

If people in this thread advocating to make the game harder are using the existing mechanics to make the game harder I am sure they would be saying why the existing mechanics don't work.  They are not saying that, they are just pointing to the game not being hard enough.

 

My perspective is very simple.  There is no consensus that I have seen that the game is to hard, to easy, or just right.  Just different opinions of a minority of players in this thread.  I don't believe wholesale balancing will work because you will get some people that like it and some that don't.  What happens if you do all the balancing and then all of a sudden you get a mass of players flooding the forum with threads that the game is to hard?  Do you go back and balance again?  These players were likely playing the game, having fun, and had no idea that the game they enjoyed was to easy.  Then all of a sudden it was much harder and now they are pissed.

 

As a side note I was in game this morning and I was watching the Help channel.  Quite a few people were asking for help.  Do you think those players feel the game is to easy?   It was obviously hard enough that they needed help getting an answer to their questions.

 

You will alienate some group of people no matter how you do wholesale balancing.  Again, I am not advocating for no balancing.  Some balancing needs to happen, but should be rare and should be for outliers.

 

I am not sure why people are opposed to using the existing mechanics and focusing first on a solution that has limited reliance on the Devs.  We should always try to solve our own problems before expecting someone else to solve them for us.

 

Ok, so, there's a lot here.  But again.  Making the game harder is not the goal with nerfs.  It's a possible side effect.  We're all well aware of how to make the game harder for us on an individual level.  That's not the complaint.  That might be why you're confused about our motives. With all the IOs and Incarnate stuff going on we are rapidly coming to a brick wall.  People want the ceiling raised instead of everyone else brought low but... some parts of this ceiling are immobile on their own.  How can a character get MORE evasive beyond where we are at now? 

 

Like an SR Tank is already beyond the soft cap with even a little effort.  And highly resistant to def debuff.  Stacking more +def on them is pointless.  Enemies will always have the lowest possible chance to hit them. You could make enemies more accurate to make it harder but isn't that the same as lowering their def?  What does the SR do to counter that?  Def is already capped.  If you both lowered enemy chance to hit AND player def you could, hypothetically, hit a spot where the SR tank feels exactly the same as now (1 in 20 shots lands) but still have a way to push beyond that and make it 1 in 30, 1 in 100.  Become even stronger then you are now.  But it means some numbers go lower and some numbers go higher.

 

It would be something like changing the def formula and base acc values across the board.  Now keep in mind I am very dumb.  This is something I would rather invoke Arcanaville for as she is the lord and master of all mathmalogical matters.

 

But in my baby brain way...

 

 The basic formula goes like this:

HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ) )

 

in PVE.  You'll notice that the "AccMods" is seperate from the base/ToHit/Def section. That little trick, and the clamp, are why now matter how much def you have a Boss will always have a higher chance to hit then a minnion.  You can't floor them because their final chance to hit gets multiplied by 1.30. Now a 6.5% chance to hit doesn't seem SUPER high.  But it works out to them hitting a capped SR tank 30% more often then a minion.  The clamps ensure that an SR tank with 60% def to all gets hit just as often as a blaster with 45% def.

 

But in PVP there's an added mechanic

 

HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × (1 - TargetElusivity) × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ) )

 

Elusivity. Which works against the Acc much like how Def is subtracted from ToHit.   Right now, you can't bring a boss's chance to hit down to the floor of 5% chance to hit due to Acc.  But if an SR tank had access to Elusivity they could push it even lower, down to the 5%. 

 

Hypothetically we could remove the clamp on the Acc portion and make it a bell curve that stretches off into infinity in both directions. An endless arms race between Elusive and Acc where you can never quite get it down to 0% chance to hit.

 

Now I'm not saying we SHOULD have Elusivity in PVE.  It's a change that would necessitate rebalancing most of the game and in many cases I imagine players will end up weaker at first. You'd likely have to shave off some Def from all the powers and shove some of it into Elusivity.  That would mean, at first, you'd get hit more often until you adjusted your build.

 

 But it would also shove the ceiling into the stratosphere.  Imagine going from a 1:20 chance to get hit to a 1:100 or 1:1000.  And a Defender who could buff Elusivity could always make your defenses better.  Heck you could even break buffs up into Elusivity or Def (or both) so an FF adds to Def and makes everyone just flatly better.  But maybe an Emp's Fort is Elusivity and it doesn't do much for someone with zero defenses but makes every def point added to you even better.  Or the other way around.

 

But as it stands, at the top, Players are generally well over-capped on Def.  It's basically at it's structural limits. Adding more doesn't do anything. That's boring.

 

 

 

 

(Hopefully I didn't screw that math up too much)

 

 

[Ralathar44]

38 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

That's all fine. I think we were just making a very specific point that i24 was NOT, in any way shape or form, an HC issue. It was designed, tested, and implemented 100% by Paragon Studios back in 2012, long before HC or SCORE existed.

Who cares who's issue it was?  This ain't a blame game.  Regardless of who made the calls where this is where we ended up.  Please keep in mind I'm not the one who made the separation of live/HC originally, I merely responded to that assertion.  What I said was "Post ED/GDN/AOE caps the game was in a solid place sans maybe blasters being a bit rough." and "HC has done alot of good things for the game but alot of it is mixed too, prolly with best of intentions.".  And someone else responded with the clarification it was LIVE that did that.  I correctly pointed out it was not.  And now folks are trying to make that whole thing an issue when it's all utterly irrelevant.  I don't care who did what.  X was the state of the game on live, Y is the state of the game now.  Regardless of whether Paragon Studios or HC devs caused todays problems doesn't matter.  What matters is how we deal with them.

I've been very consistent in saying that the current problems are the combination of several different major factors, IOs being the biggest one (implemented/balanced by live devs, increased in prominence massively by HC devs).  But all the changes are multiplicative with each other.  If IO set bonuses fell out of the game I doubt any of the blaster changes would be anything but positive and sentinel would prolly have a place.  IO bonuses empower accuracy, endurance, defense, resistance, damage, etc.  They are huge force multipliers.  So if it helps people's emotional investment and wounded pride I'm actually pinning the vast majority of the blame on live devs, with HC devs only having a small share of the "blame" there for spreading the problematic system.  But like I said, again, often times you don't know something will break things until you do it so even there I hedged on any "blame" of the HC devs.

Let's not get caught in the weeds folks.  Shelve the blame game.  It doesn't matter.  Let's just say Cthulu did it if that makes it easier for folks.  Bloody Cthulu and his insane ways.

Edited September 27, 2020 by Ralathar44

[ABlueThingy]

43 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

More specifically if someone is using SOs only I would not expect them to find iTrials easy. At all.

 

Has anyone ever tried an all SO iTrial?  That might be an interesting test to see if it's doable and how hard it ends up being.

[Wavicle]

It's totally doable. Just requires bringing Support toons and the team staying together and people knowing how the trial works.

[Wavicle]

9 minutes ago, ABlueThingy said:

I thought I did a pretty good job of it but I can try again.

 

"Hard mode" is a vauge term, there's lots of ways you could make the game "Harder" but not many that would actually solve the issue we've been trying to articulate.

 

The game is too easy > Because there's too much AoE dmg and players can achieve max def/rech on their own > this makes some roles, specifically buff/debuff classes and non-ranged/AoE dmg classes and control based classes much less useful. =/= the game needs to be harder

 

Like, broadly I think most people would like the option to make the game harder to challenge themselves in new and interesting ways, not against that. I'd love that. But that's besides the point.  I don't want to make the game harder for the sake of it.  I want parity between all the powersets and ATs.  Or something closer then what we have now.  That might entail making the game harder all around.  But if you can find a way to carve a niche for everyone in the end game, max level content(and the resultant trickle down to the rest of the game) without nerfing AoE damge, the ability to Soft Cap, mega stacking +rech.  I mean. I'm listening?

 

 

Ok, so, there's a lot here.  But again.  Making the game harder is not the goal with nerfs.  It's a possible side effect.  We're all well aware of how to make the game harder for us on an individual level.  That's not the complaint.  That might be why you're confused about our motives. With all the IOs and Incarnate stuff going on we are rapidly coming to a brick wall.  People want the ceiling raised instead of everyone else brought low but... some parts of this ceiling are immobile on their own.  How can a character get MORE evasive beyond where we are at now? 

 

Like an SR Tank is already beyond the soft cap with even a little effort.  And highly resistant to def debuff.  Stacking more +def on them is pointless.  Enemies will always have the lowest possible chance to hit them. You could make enemies more accurate to make it harder but isn't that the same as lowering their def?  What does the SR do to counter that?  Def is already capped.  If you both lowered enemy chance to hit AND player def you could, hypothetically, hit a spot where the SR tank feels exactly the same as now (1 in 20 shots lands) but still have a way to push beyond that and make it 1 in 30, 1 in 100.  Become even stronger then you are now.  But it means some numbers go lower and some numbers go higher.

 

It would be something like changing the def formula and base acc values across the board.  Now keep in mind I am very dumb.  This is something I would rather invoke Arcanaville for as she is the lord and master of all mathmalogical matters.

 

But in my baby brain way...

 

 The basic formula goes like this:

HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ) )

 

in PVE.  You'll notice that the "AccMods" is seperate from the base/ToHit/Def section. That little trick, and the clamp, are why now matter how much def you have a Boss will always have a higher chance to hit then a minnion.  You can't floor them because their final chance to hit gets multiplied by 1.30. Now a 6.5% chance to hit doesn't seem SUPER high.  But it works out to them hitting a capped SR tank 30% more often then a minion.  The clamps ensure that an SR tank with 60% def to all gets hit just as often as a blaster with 45% def.

 

But in PVP there's an added mechanic

 

HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × (1 - TargetElusivity) × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ) )

 

Elusivity. Which works against the Acc much like how Def is subtracted from ToHit.   Right now, you can't bring a boss's chance to hit down to the floor of 5% chance to hit due to Acc.  But if an SR tank had access to Elusivity they could push it even lower, down to the 5%. 

 

Hypothetically we could remove the clamp on the Acc portion and make it a bell curve that stretches off into infinity in both directions. An endless arms race between Elusive and Acc where you can never quite get it down to 0% chance to hit.

 

Now I'm not saying we SHOULD have Elusivity in PVE.  It's a change that would necessitate rebalancing most of the game and in many cases I imagine players will end up weaker at first. You'd likely have to shave off some Def from all the powers and shove some of it into Elusivity.  That would mean, at first, you'd get hit more often until you adjusted your build.

 

 But it would also shove the ceiling into the stratosphere.  Imagine going from a 1:20 chance to get hit to a 1:100 or 1:1000.  And a Defender who could buff Elusivity could always make your defenses better.  Heck you could even break buffs up into Elusivity or Def (or both) so an FF adds to Def and makes everyone just flatly better.  But maybe an Emp's Fort is Elusivity and it doesn't do much for someone with zero defenses but makes every def point added to you even better.  Or the other way around.

 

But as it stands, at the top, Players are generally well over-capped on Def.  It's basically at it's structural limits. Adding more doesn't do anything. That's boring.

 

 

 

 

(Hopefully I didn't screw that math up too much)

 

 

Changing the underlying math of the game itself is unlikely to happen. As much as I agree with your general point, it's just not going to happen.

What DID happen, and can be exploited by the Devs in future content, is to increase the Base accuracy of the mobs in Incarnate content. It's a much more feasible approach.

[Wavicle]

On a different subject:

I am very happy with the proposal to balance Blaster secondaries. A couple of the newer ones probably need to be reined in a little and a couple of the older ones probably could use a buff.

Bringing these in line with one another will make it feasible to buff Sentinels with more leeway to avoid treading on Blasters toes.

[ABlueThingy]

4 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Changing the underlying math of the game itself is unlikely to happen. As much as I agree with your general point, it's just not going to happen.

What DID happen, and can be exploited by the Devs in future content, is to increase the Base accuracy of the mobs in Incarnate content. It's a much more feasible approach.

 I agree it's a hell of an undertaking.  But for the long term health of the game I think something of similar magnitude is going to be required eventually.  Raising the base acc is the same as just lowering everyone's defenses in Incarnate content.  It's just as boring an answer as going through and lowering the base value for the def sets.

 

Er, not that I'm saying you should have the answer or anything.  I'm mostly in this thread for the sake of discussion and hashing out ideas.

[Haijinx]

29 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

Let's not get caught in the weeds folks.  Shelve the blame game.  It doesn't matter.  Let's just say Cthulu did it if that makes it easier for folks.  Bloody Cthulu and his insane ways.

Now *THAT* game was hard.  

 

A lot harder than anything anyone is proposing for COH.  

 

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by Haijinx

[Haijinx]

26 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

Changing the underlying math of the game itself is unlikely to happen. As much as I agree with your general point, it's just not going to happen.

What DID happen, and can be exploited by the Devs in future content, is to increase the Base accuracy of the mobs in Incarnate content. It's a much more feasible approach.

Limiting it just to future content is pretty meh

 

But also don't stop at Accuracy and to hit bonuses.  Give them defense bonuses too.  

[ShardWarrior]

3 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

That  . . . would probably make it even more complex.

Why?

[Wavicle]

56 minutes ago, ABlueThingy said:

 I agree it's a hell of an undertaking.  But for the long term health of the game I think something of similar magnitude is going to be required eventually.  Raising the base acc is the same as just lowering everyone's defenses in Incarnate content.  It's just as boring an answer as going through and lowering the base value for the def sets.

 

Er, not that I'm saying you should have the answer or anything.  I'm mostly in this thread for the sake of discussion and hashing out ideas.

right, but I'm saying it should be limited to the level 50 game, the rest of the game doesn't need to change in that regard.

[Wavicle]

39 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Limiting it just to future content is pretty meh

 

But also don't stop at Accuracy and to hit bonuses.  Give them defense bonuses too.  

I think changing the existing content is too big an ask and probably just a mistake in general.

Defense bonuses in future Incarnate content, agreed.

[summers]

Make Blasters actual glass cannons and hard cap their defences at 30%

 

 

 

[Naraka]

1 hour ago, Lockpick said:

 

I haven't dismissed it as a partial option.  I think balancing makes sense if you have outliers, but I think this game for the most part is fine as is.  My point is that when you balance you are always going to have some happy people and you will make some unhappy.  Why not look at options that might make everyone happy first?

 

Why not look at options that make everyone happy?  Well you just said in your previous sentence why not, because you're not going to make everyone happy.  Some will be unhappy.  So why bother worrying about emotional reactions and start by looking at things critically *first*?  You can worry about people being happy or unhappy in the planning phases.

 

1 hour ago, Lockpick said:

On another note, it is incredibly insulting for you to suggest I leave because I am making suggestions that I think are for the betterment of the game.  Why would I leave?  I am incredibly happy with the game as is and have spent a ton of time playing here.   I am not the one calling for wholesale changes that are going to affect everyone.  When I want an easy experience I can have it, when I want a challenging experience I can have it, I can solo when I want, and I can team when I want.  IMO this is the best MMO ever because I can play how I want when I want.

 

 Imagine using that argument on the opposing crowd then.  Lol it happened.

 

But then I'm not suggesting you leave, I'm asking there are likely reasons you choose to stay despite there being more powerful builds and capabilities on other servers.  It can't all be about the power trip but also about the balance.  If anything, that's likely what stands HC apart from the others which is why striking a balance is important.

1 hour ago, golstat2003 said:

I don't need the game to be easier or harder. It's fine to me as is.

So you leave your game on default difficulty when you start a character?  You don't push it up to +2 or +3 or turn on bosses solo?

[golstat2003]

2 hours ago, Wavicle said:

That's all fine. I think we were just making a very specific point that i24 was NOT, in any way shape or form, an HC issue. It was designed, tested, and implemented 100% by Paragon Studios back in 2012, long before HC or SCORE existed.

Pretty much this.

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, ABlueThingy said:

Has anyone ever tried an all SO iTrial?  That might be an interesting test to see if it's doable and how hard it ends up being.

Depends on which trial. 

Edited September 28, 2020 by golstat2003

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, ABlueThingy said:

 I agree it's a hell of an undertaking.  But for the long term health of the game I think something of similar magnitude is going to be required eventually.  Raising the base acc is the same as just lowering everyone's defenses in Incarnate content.  It's just as boring an answer as going through and lowering the base value for the def sets.

 

Er, not that I'm saying you should have the answer or anything.  I'm mostly in this thread for the sake of discussion and hashing out ideas.

It's just not going to happen. Not unless you are willing to take the hit of no new content for years. I'm not.