Game Balance & The Endgame

[Wavicle]

Just now, Coyote said:

 

Hm. It seems to me that the damage scalar for Dominators is pretty solid considering that it's their secondary. They are a Control first, Damage second AT and therefore should be clearly inferior in damage to an AT that is Damage first, Damage second.

How useful Control is in the end game, could be an interesting discussion. There were some good ideas for making it more useful. One idea would be to have a minor -Def/-Res on mobs that can't defend themselves, which would in effect be comparable to a small bump in Dominator damage (but more useful on teams, where the greater AoE of Blasters pushes them ahead in utility). But it's a problem with the usefulness of Control, and we shouldn't use that to balance an AT so that its secondary is treated like a primary.

Dominators do more damage than you would expect for a damage second AT, that is to say it was intentionally boosted higher than it otherwise would have been in order to make them effective damage dealers, but you still have to take pet damage into account when considering their whole contribution.

[Vanden]

4 hours ago, Soulbent said:

In order to bring end game Elec armor back into discussions can we fix the health crash end crash is fine but health crash just means that it gets leapfrogged by every other armor set

I assume you're talking about Power Surge? Personally I think the real problem with Power Surge is that if you take Tough, Elec Armor will pretty easily cap its S/L/E resists on every AT besides Brutes. You need IOs to get to the S/L cap, but it's easily doable. And once you have, Power Surge won't do anything at all for the most common types of damage, so it's virtually worthless even if you don't worry about the crash.

[Wavicle]

1 hour ago, Coyote said:

How useful Control is in the end game, could be an interesting discussion. 

Hopefully the devs are looking into that along with support.

[FUBARczar]

7 hours ago, Wavicle said:

lol, no.

 

lol

wow, insightful and constructive. 

I'm on Excel come and show me how it's done then...  Bring you Dominator and show me how useful your pets.  Bring a Blaster and show me how sustain is inferior to Domination, I can always use vengbait.

[FUBARczar]

On 10/2/2020 at 5:23 AM, Blackbird71 said:

This, a thousand times.  For many reasons, I would love it if IO sets were simply removed from the game.  It will never happen, but I think it would solve a lot of problems.

you can knee-cap yourself voluntarily.  You know that right?  you don't have to use IOs, they are a choice. You may roll completely unslotted, have at it.

[FUBARczar]

7 hours ago, Wavicle said:

Dominators do more damage than you would expect for a damage second AT, that is to say it was intentionally boosted higher than it otherwise would have been in order to make them effective damage dealers...

 

your argument lacks merit.

 

[Blasters] do more damage than you would expect for a [melee] second AT, that is to say it was intentionally boosted higher than it otherwise would have been in order to make them effective damage dealers...

 

OR

 

[Brutes mitigate] more damage than you would expect for a [defense] second AT, that is to say it was intentionally boosted higher than it otherwise would have been in order to make them effective damage [sponges] (aka more survivable), ...

 

Or...

 

7 hours ago, Wavicle said:

but you still have to take pet damage into account when considering their whole contribution.

It sure seems like many of you run around doing content at level 50 (effectively at -1 after the level shift).  No wonder you think a;; your powers are so effective.  As I said before, I and everyone I know plays at +4/8 all the time any time, no matter how many people are or are not on the team.  And lvl 49+1 pets have marginal damage and survivability.  They are more of a hassle than a help really.  The are nearly impossible to keep track of, they almost always run off and attack useless targets, and die in 1 or 2 hits. 

 

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, FUBARczar said:

your argument lacks merit.

 

[Blasters] do more damage than you would expect for a [melee] second AT, that is to say it was intentionally boosted higher than it otherwise would have been in order to make them effective damage dealers...

 

OR

 

[Brutes mitigate] more damage than you would expect for a [defense] second AT, that is to say it was intentionally boosted higher than it otherwise would have been in order to make them effective damage [sponges] (aka more survivable), ...

 

Or...

 

It sure seems like many of you run around doing content at level 50 (effectively at -1 after the level shift).  No wonder you think a;; your powers are so effective.  As I said before, I and everyone I know plays at +4/8 all the time any time, no matter how many people are or are not on the team.  And lvl 49+1 pets have marginal damage and survivability.  They are more of a hassle than a help really.  The are nearly impossible to keep track of, they almost always run off and attack useless targets, and die in 1 or 2 hits. 

 

Excuse me, you are missing the point. I am not making “an argument”, I am relating the history of the AT. They were released with lower damage and with a different Domination and they were modified over a period of time including their damage being raised so they could compete with damage primary ATs. This can be probably be found in the development history of the game.

[FUBARczar]

3 hours ago, Wavicle said:

Excuse me, you are missing the point. I am not making “an argument”, I am relating the history of the AT. They were released with lower damage and with a different Domination and they were modified over a period of time including their damage being raised so they could compete with damage primary ATs. This can be probably be found in the development history of the game.

yeah I remember how pathetic Dominators were at the launch of CoV. 

BTW an "argument" simply means b: a coherent series of reasons, statements, or facts intended to support or establish a point of view. Were you not coherently stating a series of reasons or facts to make your point, to relay the "history" of the game?  My bad, maybe you were just speaking aimlessly.  

 

And to be more clear:

11 hours ago, Wavicle said:

Dominators do more damage than you would expect for a damage second AT

  No they don't do more than expected.  I think your expectations are of your own making, limiting your PoV.  It doesn't really matter if a power is from a primary or secondary set.  Do Range attacks have a lower modifier if they happen to be from a Blaster's secondary?  

 

[Naraka]

6 hours ago, FUBARczar said:

you can knee-cap yourself voluntarily.  You know that right?  you don't have to use IOs, they are a choice. You may roll completely unslotted, have at it.

You can read a full post to understand its full context. You know that, right? You don't have to reply to a post you don't like while ignoring the full context to make a pointless post. You can disagree and post a relevant argument by doing so, have at it. 

[CaptainLupis]

14 hours ago, Coyote said:

 

Hm. It seems to me that the damage scalar for Dominators is pretty solid considering that it's their secondary. They are a Control first, Damage second AT and therefore should be clearly inferior in damage to an AT that is Damage first, Damage second.

How useful Control is in the end game, could be an interesting discussion. There were some good ideas for making it more useful. One idea would be to have a minor -Def/-Res on mobs that can't defend themselves, which would in effect be comparable to a small bump in Dominator damage (but more useful on teams, where the greater AoE of Blasters pushes them ahead in utility). But it's a problem with the usefulness of Control, and we shouldn't use that to balance an AT so that its secondary is treated like a primary.

I do think that control powers should have a secondary effect that is useful at end game, not sure -def/res is the way to go. I think it would be more interesting if there were something like special attacks (or maybe powers like heals) that end game AVs had that could be countered by control powers, like interrupting the attack or heal, even if the purple triangles are up. The attacks would be the type of things that would make melee types get out the area, so it affects dps, or a largish heal. Dps could still bring them down eventually without controls, but having controls would make things go much faster/smoother.

 

BTW, that's just something off the top of my head, not an idea I am actually advocating, but I just think we should be lookiong at something a bit different for them rather than adding yet more damage or debuffs.

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 9/20/2020 at 10:58 PM, Number Six said:

Some powers are nerfed AND buffed.

 

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

I was trying to read through this thread and got stuck on this.  It was like a bolt of lightning clarifying something that I didn't quite grasp before since I left Live before they went to RMT.

 

OF COURSE!  I thought that the newer powers were overtuned just because of power creep over time, but trying to maximize revenue would obviously lead to more powerful sets available for cash to avoid the disgruntled "I PAID REAL MONEY" players leaving.

 

To me (and you may not agree), this absolutely explains why all the overtuned sets are legacy RMT sets.  And to me, in a completely free to play environment, this makes it clear as to what I would do personally in response to balance.

 

I would tear down every overpowered RMT set to put it on par with the rank and file sets.  Yes, not every RMT set is overpowered.  Yes, you *could* overpower all the other sets too, but I think we have hit the limit when you can (literally?) solo an ITF on every AT and powerset combos as it is.

 

This is merely my opinion, yours may vary, yadda yadda yadda.  But I suddenly understood WHY and now I have a new appreciation for the current devs who want to balance based on a one-tier system when they inherited a two tier free/pay system.

 

You may now return to your scheduled programming.  Happy hunting!

[FUBARczar]

3 hours ago, Naraka said:

You can read a full post to understand its full context. You know that, right? You don't have to reply to a post you don't like while ignoring the full context to make a pointless post. You can disagree and post a relevant argument by doing so, have at it. 

I did, maybe that person can start an SO-only SG, so all like minded players can team together and find their balance together.

[FUBARczar]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I would tear down every overpowered RMT set to put it on par with the rank and file sets. 

Star Wars makes so much more sense now

Edited October 3, 2020 by FUBARczar

[Wavicle]

6 hours ago, FUBARczar said:

Were you not coherently stating a series of reasons or facts to make your point, to relay the "history" of the game? 

No. I was MERELY relaying the history, I was not making a point. I wasn't even responding to YOU! I was talking to Coyote.

[Coyote]

6 hours ago, FUBARczar said:

It doesn't really matter if a power is from a primary or secondary set.  Do Range attacks have a lower modifier if they happen to be from a Blaster's secondary? 

 

I think you missed the point of the "secondary damage" argument. A POWER doesn't have a damage scalar, an AT does. It makes sense that an AT whose attack set is a secondary powerset would have a lower damage scalar than one whose attack set is a primary powerset. However, once an AT's purpose is conceptualized and then realized via AT scalars, it doesn't matter whether a particular power comes from the primary or the secondary.

So a Dominator should use the same scalar for ranged attacks from their primary as for ranged attacks from their secondary. But it's eminently reasonable that their ranged damage scalar is lower than that of a Blaster, whose primary powerset is "Ranged Damage". There seems to be a more reasonable argument to make that the melee scalar could reasonably be raised to match a Blaster's, though I'm not actually advocating it. Just saying that there isn't an automatic argument against it.

[Sovera]

People lolling at what is being said towards Controller/Dominator pets being a liability is really odd to me. Are they even playing the game or is it more of 'Brutes are the best AT and Scrappers are really weak' we had earlier this week?

 

Because my experience with Controllers (more so than Doms, but Doms too) is that the pet is nice, yeah, sure, but also crumples like paper if mobs escape the tank or are not CCed.

 

In a spreadsheet scenario, yeah, useful. In the usual chaos it's common to see a +4 boss off to the side wailing on a pet and the pet having chunks of HP ripped off. I basically stopped summoning mine and Dom players who min max have said they stopped bothering with theirs as well.

 

Now Dominators don't really mind this a lot since they can do muuuuuch damage on their own (pretty much rivaling Brutes at farming with certain builds) but a Controller needs the pets for the damage.

[Wavicle]

13 minutes ago, Sovera said:

People lolling at what is being said towards Controller/Dominator pets being a liability is really odd to me. Are they even playing the game or is it more of 'Brutes are the best AT and Scrappers are really weak' we had earlier this week?

 

Because my experience with Controllers (more so than Doms, but Doms too) is that the pet is nice, yeah, sure, but also crumples like paper if mobs escape the tank or are not CCed.

 

In a spreadsheet scenario, yeah, useful. In the usual chaos it's common to see a +4 boss off to the side wailing on a pet and the pet having chunks of HP ripped off. I basically stopped summoning mine and Dom players who min max have said they stopped bothering with theirs as well.

 

Now Dominators don't really mind this a lot since they can do muuuuuch damage on their own (pretty much rivaling Brutes at farming with certain builds) but a Controller needs the pets for the damage.

But you DO have CC! Support your pets!

[Coyotedancer]

14 minutes ago, Sovera said:

People lolling at what is being said towards Controller/Dominator pets being a liability is really odd to me.

 

Well, once in awhile the uncontrollable nutballs *do* wander off, aggro things they really oughtn't and try their best to get you killed.... Or is that just me with Cardinal's electric-dudes and Albert's fire-monkeys? 😝

[Sovera]

Just now, Coyotedancer said:

 

Well, once in awhile the uncontrollable nutballs *do* wander off, aggro things they really oughtn't and try their best to get you killed.... Or is that just me with Cardinal's electric-dudes and Albert's fire-monkeys? 😝

No, those just hate you in particular. It is personal.

[Coyotedancer]

Just now, Sovera said:

No, those just hate you in particular. It is personal.

I *KNEW* it! 

 

<_<

>_>

 

Those fire-monkeys are Up To Something. 

[FUBARczar]

3 hours ago, Wavicle said:

No. I was MERELY relaying the history, I was not making a point. I wasn't even responding to YOU! I was talking to Coyote.

Sorry my bad, I didn't know that posts on these boards were to be considered as private messages.  But to be clear relaying the history is not conveying a point?  So what you were saying was pointless?  

[Wavicle]

1 hour ago, FUBARczar said:

Sorry my bad, I didn't know that posts on these boards were to be considered as private messages.  But to be clear relaying the history is not conveying a point?  So what you were saying was pointless?  

You're being ridiculous. I quoted Coyote. I was CLEARLY responding to what Coyote said. You just chose not to pay attention to that and now you're being snide even though you're in the wrong.

And you're being intentionally obtuse. The point of clarifying history is so that history is understood, not to make some OTHER point.

[Dragotect]

5 hours ago, FUBARczar said:

Star Wars makes so much more sense now

Aaaaand now the thread is ready to be closed.

[FUBARczar]

4 hours ago, Sovera said:

I basically stopped summoning mine and Dom players who min max have said they stopped bothering with theirs as well.

tru dat

[FUBARczar]

1 hour ago, Dragotect said:

Aaaaand now the thread is ready to be closed.

you don't like Star Wars quotes?