Game Balance & The Endgame

[FUBARczar]

3 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Question for the numbers people: I think most of us agree that the all of the single target Hold, single target Immob, and AoE Immob powers in the Control sets should do identical damage (except Fire, which should do more). That would mean either the damage scale of the power would be adjusted to the animation, or the the animation time match across powers.

 

My question is:

• If this is done, what is the appropriate animation time and damage for these powers?
• Does this value allow a Dominator who takes a melee-heavy Assault set to fill out a ranged attack chain for difficult fights sufficiently to cover that weakness? 

 

Here's the current anim time for the Hold powers:

• Dark: 1.8
• Earth: 2.2
• Electric: 2.3
• Fire: 1.32
• Gravity: 1.98
• Ice: 2.1
• Mind: 1.32
• Plant: 2.2

 

I assume we don't want to nerf Fire or Mind. So should a 1.32 animation time be the target goal? Is that number fair or unfair to blast archetypes like Blasters, Corruptors, and Defenders?

yeah the T1-3 control set powers need to be brought into alignment more, and it is pretty much just the animation times.  

[ShardWarrior]

4 hours ago, Ralathar44 said:

The current status quo is some ATs/powersets can solo content at difficulty levels intended for teams and some cannot.  Some ATs/powersets are far more valuable than others in high levle content as well due to the base game mechanics of how difficulty scales, what IO sets are available, and what aspects of your character (dmg/to-hit/defense/resist/recharge/control/debuffs) you can boost huge amounts and which you can only boost minor amounts.  Unfortunately these are almost exclusively the same ATs powersets benefiting with mostly the same losing out in both scenarios.

When has this ever not been the case?

[FUBARczar]

2 hours ago, Gulbasaur said:

They can hit 45% defences, which back before the IO power creep was Tanker-tier levels of protection. That's what I meant, really. 

 

IO sets have flattened a lot of the differences in archetypes, particularly at end-game. The epic ATs were once unique in being able to do decent ranged damage and also survive decently well. Now, it's fairly easy to build up defences on an archetype with no armour set that once a tanker would have been jealous of. 

 

Support sets used to have a much stronger role in the game, but now a lot of what they achieved can be done solo through procs and bonuses. 

 

What I'd really like to see is some enemy groups that work against the AoE dogpile meta - give up enemies that you have to mez (like in the Hamidon encounter) and enemies that get stronger when you tightly pack them all on or have stacking AoE debuffs. There needs to be an option for every playstyle, while at the moment the end game is very strongly stacked towards AoE damage, no knockback, no healers needed gameplay and that's fine for sometimes but there needs to be an option B as well, partly for build and playstyle diversity but also it's a bit stale.

IDK I thought held-agains were always a novelty.  When SoAs came out, they were generally viewed as superior.  Totally anecdotally, but given the choice I would much rather have an SoA join the team than a HEAT.

 

[Coyote]

3 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Question for the numbers people: I think most of us agree that the all of the single target Hold, single target Immob, and AoE Immob powers in the Control sets should do identical damage (except Fire, which should do more). That would mean either the damage scale of the power would be adjusted to the animation, or the the animation time match across powers.

 

My question is:

• If this is done, what is the appropriate animation time and damage for these powers?
• Does this value allow a Dominator who takes a melee-heavy Assault set to fill out a ranged attack chain for difficult fights sufficiently to cover that weakness? 

 

Here's the current anim time for the Hold powers:

• Dark: 1.8
• Earth: 2.2
• Electric: 2.3
• Fire: 1.32
• Gravity: 1.98
• Ice: 2.1
• Mind: 1.32
• Plant: 2.2

 

I assume we don't want to nerf Fire or Mind. So should a 1.32 animation time be the target goal? Is that number fair or unfair to blast archetypes like Blasters, Corruptors, and Defenders?

 

In general, I don't like the idea of balancing everything to the best value. So it would mean something like normalizing around a 1.5-1.8 animation time.
Another option would be to leave the animation times as-is, and figure out the "cycle time" of a power with, say, 50% Recharge enhancement. Then, normalize the DURATION of the Holds and the DAMAGE of the Immobilizes so that if a power takes 20% longer to cycle than another, it does 20% more damage (or hold duration). Then, they end up being slower and harder hitting, or faster but don't hit as hard. And it would take less time than working on animations.

[ZacKing]

5 hours ago, Ralathar44 said:

That is a contradiction.  The current status quo is some ATs/powersets can solo content at difficulty levels intended for teams and some cannot.  Some ATs/powersets are far more valuable than others in high levle content as well due to the base game mechanics of how difficulty scales, what IO sets are available, and what aspects of your character (dmg/to-hit/defense/resist/recharge/control/debuffs) you can boost huge amounts and which you can only boost minor amounts.  Unfortunately these are almost exclusively the same ATs powersets benefiting with mostly the same losing out in both scenarios.

There's always been ATs and powersets that were better than others since day one.   everyone keeps thinking about endgame level and ignore exemping down to run lower level content.  sets like empathy are going to shine at lower levels where they're needed more. 

 

5 hours ago, Ralathar44 said:

Harder content will not solve the core issues, it will only make the gap wider between those powersets and ATs that benefit much more from the current framework.  IOs and Incarnates do not benefit all power sets and ATs equally or even close.  Some it makes into unstoppable gods, others merely become strong.  Similarly difficulty scaling does not affect all powersets and ATs equally.

In all honesty I do hope they take the path you speak of regarding higher difficulty content because all it will do is shine a brighter spotlight on the existing problems making them too visible to ignore as the gap widens even further.

all depends on how the content is designed.  if they go the route of baking in a need for CC and debuff like Hami raids and stuff, then yeah it makes everything valuable.  But even if they do that, there's still going to be power sets that are just better than others.  the idea of making everything equal is a pipe dream.

[Lockpick]

2 hours ago, Gulbasaur said:

They can hit 45% defences, which back before the IO power creep was Tanker-tier levels of protection. That's what I meant, really. 

 

IO sets have flattened a lot of the differences in archetypes, particularly at end-game. The epic ATs were once unique in being able to do decent ranged damage and also survive decently well. Now, it's fairly easy to build up defences on an archetype with no armour set that once a tanker would have been jealous of. 

 

Support sets used to have a much stronger role in the game, but now a lot of what they achieved can be done solo through procs and bonuses. 

 

What I'd really like to see is some enemy groups that work against the AoE dogpile meta - give up enemies that you have to mez (like in the Hamidon encounter) and enemies that get stronger when you tightly pack them all on or have stacking AoE debuffs. There needs to be an option for every playstyle, while at the moment the end game is very strongly stacked towards AoE damage, no knockback, no healers needed gameplay and that's fine for sometimes but there needs to be an option B as well, partly for build and playstyle diversity but also it's a bit stale.

 

While 45% defense on a blaster is nice it certainly doesn't make them a tank.  I build all my blasters for 45% S/L/R and I can't tank at all.  There is no mez protection like a real tank has for one.  I agree IOs have flattened the differences, but to me that is a good thing.

 

On the one hand I agree that I would like to see new villains that have unique features, but putting a villain that can't be defeated without mez would mean many ATs / sets would have no way to defeat the bad guy.  Maybe that is okay, but that type of solution should be rare because you are just flipping which AT / set is no longer valid to the point where some ATs / sets are completely invalid wherein the current situation I cannot think of any situation where Support, CC, or Pet classes are completely invalid today.

 

 

Edited October 8, 2020 by Lockpick
Spelling

[Ralathar44]

2 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

When has this ever not been the case?

Post ED/GDN/target caps but pre-everyone having IOs and Incarnate.  When IOs and Incarnate were rolled out they took huge amounts of investment to progress in.  So someone having a significant amount of them was a rare exception, not the norm.  Progression in those has been made infinitely easier and thus has changed the norm.  The possibility was there, but it wasn't realistically achievable by 99% of the playerbase.  Now it's easily achievable by anyone.  People not being able to achieve progression because of insane grind walls was a problem, but everyone being able to achieve that progression has shown that the progression itself was not balanced properly and that's also a problem.
 

2 hours ago, ZacKing said:

There's always been ATs and powersets that were better than others since day one.

If we had that fatalist point of view then blasters would never have gotten any help and we wouldn't make AT wide and powerset balance changes.  This argument is pretty self defeating as both the live team and the HC have consistently made changes to try and even out some of the power levels between Power Sets and ATs.  Similarly Titan Weapons isn't that great early on but it's in the crosshairs of a rework right now and the fact it overperforms once you get high enough level to get it running is part of the reason it's being reworked.
 

2 hours ago, ZacKing said:

the idea of making everything equal is a pipe dream.

OFC, however the goal of any "balanced" game is to make everything viable within roughly 15%-20% of a power benchmark.  This is not my invention pulled from my arse, this is consistent game balancing design philosophy started way back in the Magic the Gathering days with the Mana Curve or Jedi Curve and is still followed across the industry today.  It takes into account not only what is realistically achievable but indeed delivering content appealing to different types of players too.

So if we had some theoretical "power level" it'd be ok for one AT/Set to be at power level 115 and another to be at 85, which is a fair sized difference.  Unfortunately with COH that's closer to a 200 vs 50.  It's not just that some power sets are weaker/stronger than others, they are weaker/stronger by a ridiculous order of magnitude.

Edited October 8, 2020 by Ralathar44

[Coyotedancer]

1 hour ago, Lockpick said:

 

On the one hand I agree that I would like to see new villains that have unique features, but putting a villain that can't be defeated without mez would mean many ATs / sets would have no way to defeat the bad guy.  Maybe that is okay, but that type of solution should be rare because you are just flipping which AT / set is no longer valid to the point where some ATs / sets are completely invalid wherein the current situation I cannot think of any situation where Support, CC, or Pet classes are completely invalid today.

 

 

 

It would also pretty much kill that content/part of the game for anyone who routinely solos or plays duo/trio on characters that are something other than the "required" type for dealing with those enemies. That alone would earn the idea a hard NO from me.

 

While I like the idea of having optional challenge modes, being able to run regular content solo or small-team with anything you want is a big positive feature of the game as far as I can see. Mission mobs that invalidate that by requiring specific powers to overcome definitely fall into Do Not Want territory.

[ShardWarrior]

12 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

Post ED/GDN/target caps but pre-everyone having IOs and Incarnate. 

Sorry, but that is simply not true.  Post ED/GDN/target caps sets like Kinetics and Radiation Emission far, far outclassed and were much more desired on teams than a set like Empathy or Force Fields, much like today.  Scrappers, tanks and Brutes could solo content designed for teams far, far more easily than a Defender or Corruptor or Dominator. 

[ShardWarrior]

2 hours ago, Lockpick said:

On the one hand I agree that I would like to see new villains that have unique features, but putting a villain that can't be defeated without mez would mean many ATs / sets would have no way to defeat the bad guy.  Maybe that is okay, but that type of solution should be rare because you are just flipping which AT / set is no longer valid to the point where some ATs / sets are completely invalid wherein the current situation I cannot think of any situation where Support, CC, or Pet classes are completely invalid today.

So long as it is designed specifically as team content like iTrials or TFs, I do not necessarily mind. 

[ZacKing]

27 minutes ago, Ralathar44 said:

If we had that fatalist point of view then blasters would never have gotten any help and we wouldn't make AT wide and powerset balance changes.  This argument is pretty self defeating as both the live team and the HC have consistently made changes to try and even out some of the power levels between Power Sets and ATs.  Similarly Titan Weapons isn't that great early on but it's in the crosshairs of a rework right now and the fact it overperforms once you get high enough level to get it running is part of the reason it's being reworked.

It's not fatalistic man, it's reality.  Despite all the tinkering done by the old Devs and the people here, some sets are still better and are going to be more desired different reasons for team play.  and that's a good thing IMO.  different sets for different playstyles.  some people might like to duo so something like a tank and an empath will be a great combo.  others like to run on high powered, high performing teams and will pick the sets like Kinetics or fire blast that offer the most damage dealing in the fastest time.  trying all this balance stuff you're dreaming for is a bad idea because it's going to just lead to neutering and homogenization and make the game bland.

[golstat2003]

On 10/6/2020 at 7:37 PM, Ralathar44 said:

Look, we need to decide folks.  Either we want folks to feel like gods and be totally overpowered for the content, in which case EVERY power set and class should feel like gods, OR everyone should have strengths and weaknesses and significantly benefit from all manners of controls/debuffs/buffs even if they are tricked out.  If the answer is "let us be OP" then you need to let other ATs also be OP.  Folks arguing that they should be allowed to be OP for current game content but that other ATs are not allowed to be as OP as them in ways that matter are hypocrites IMO.

In end game teams thanks to the level of player power controls are just not near as valuable and can be determental, so damage is really all the Dom brings to the table.  I don't personally thanks that's balanced, but I don't personally think the current state of the end game is balanced either.  If the current state of the end game is fine then Doms getting additional damage to better compete with blasters/scrappers is also fine.

 

Giving them more control would be getting close to "City of Statues" that both the live dev team and HC don't want.

So yeah other than damage I'm not sure what else you could give them for the endgame.

[Coyote]

2 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

Giving them more control would be getting close to "City of Statues" that both the live dev team and HC don't want.

So yeah other than damage I'm not sure what else you could give them for the endgame.

 

It's not "more control" that Dominators (and Controllers) need in the end game.
It's "more VALUE to controlling mobs over just damaging them" that is needed. Their controls don't need to be made stronger, but they do need to be made more useful.

The simplest way would be to decrease damage in the end game. Heh. And that's neither simple nor a safe nest to poke a stick at. Other design ways that I can think of are more complicated.

[golstat2003]

23 hours ago, Wavicle said:

No. Dominators are quantitatively, unequivocally, stronger now than ever before.

 

 Only the relative value of damage and CC has changed. The problem is the content, not the powers.

This. All this and posts like it.

[golstat2003]

5 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

It's not "more control" that Dominators (and Controllers) need in the end game.
It's "more VALUE to controlling mobs over just damaging them" that is needed. Their controls don't need to be made stronger, but they do need to be made more useful.

The simplest way would be to decrease damage in the end game. Heh. And that's neither simple nor a safe nest to poke a stick at. Other design ways that I can think of are more complicated.

An overall damage increase for everyone just seems like it would be a nightmare to implement correctly and I don't think anyone on HC, the live devs or the game community at large would like/would have liked that. And honestly I'm not sure it would make control all that more valuable, as you still need just damage to defeat mobs. Unless you are talking about an extreme decrease in damage . . . but that leads to the problems I stated at first. You still have to end up with a game that folks want to play. lol

 

Controllers are a little different in that they can bring something other than control to the ballgame. The real issue is for Doms. They bring control and damage, that's it.

 

EDIT: I think the proper solution is stronger content where control matters. The BAF's escappe stage kinda shows where control shines (and could shine) in harder content. Soft control like KB also shines here.

Edited October 8, 2020 by golstat2003

[golstat2003]

23 hours ago, Mezmera said:

Well I DO think the crashless nuke needs toned down.  Just like I see the same correlation for those asking for the aoe holds to be lowered from 240s to pretty much available for every mob just like that OP nuke.  

 

Leave the aoe hold as is, perma holding the map wouldn't be fun, create more parity with that nuke and there you have it.  If we're not gonna look at the nukes I'd still say fast charging aoe holds would be broken (as if the nukes aren't) so I'm more advocating for a slight uptick to a few damage types for doms.  All in all blasters would still far outdamage them still.  

I don't use the AOE Holds. I find them pretty much useless like crasheless nukes are. My controllers and doms have better more useful tools to bring to the table. Keeping them at 240s pretty much means for most players, they are just IO mules.

[golstat2003]

17 hours ago, Mezmera said:

Hence tone down the crashless nuke if we're going to be nerfing PPM and other avenues of damage.  That by default would buff the "lower" damage AT's.  

Not really. I've been on teams where steam rolling still happens when there isn't a crashless nuke in site. Also Judgement. 😛 

[aethereal]

24 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

Not really. I've been on teams where steam rolling still happens when there isn't a crashless nuke in site. Also Judgement. 😛 

There's always a spectrum.  Sometimes you're on a team with 7 great players.  Sometimes you're on a team where the sets really synergize well, or the enemies can't attack your team's weaknesses.

[Mezmera]

26 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

I don't use the AOE Holds. I find them pretty much useless like crasheless nukes are. My controllers and doms have better more useful tools to bring to the table. Keeping them at 240s pretty much means for most players, they are just IO mules.

A controller/dom without strong aoe control to bring to the table.  How deceived your teammates must feel.

 

"What you thought you were inviting heals with my empath?  Oh no no I exclusively blast, do you not have greenies in your tray?"

[Naraka]

22 minutes ago, Mezmera said:

A controller/dom without strong aoe control to bring to the table.  How deceived your teammates must feel.

 

"What you thought you were inviting heals with my empath?  Oh no no I exclusively blast, do you not have greenies in your tray?"

From the viewpoint of the meta, those AoE holds don't provide much AoE control when you calculate the uptime, the amount of slotting to make accurate and effective vs other more readily avaliable soft control to mix with the hard control that is available more often especially when you take into consideration the trash mobs won't live long enough to need them fully held. 

 

From my viewpoint, having that trick in my back pocket to neutralize an ambush spawn for nearly half a min while also juggling 2 other spawns with the rest of my AoE controls and engaging a 4th is just too much of a thrill to pass up. Does it happen often? No, but I still want to be able to regardless of if I have a perma-hasten def cap premium build. 

[PoitVok]

Popping in for a random suggestions. 

 

In Guild Wars 2, some enemies have mechanics where they need to be CC'd in order to take more damage/interrupt an attack/etc. These enemies have a separate 'energy bar' which CC attacks deplete from. Once it's emptied, it slowly recovers during which you can focus fire on the enemy.

 

Maybe a similar mechanic? Like, some end-game enemies can only be hurt when CC'd? 

[Coyotedancer]

3 minutes ago, PoitVok said:

Popping in for a random suggestions. 

 

In Guild Wars 2, some enemies have mechanics where they need to be CC'd in order to take more damage/interrupt an attack/etc. These enemies have a separate 'energy bar' which CC attacks deplete from. Once it's emptied, it slowly recovers during which you can focus fire on the enemy.

 

Maybe a similar mechanic? Like, some end-game enemies can only be hurt when CC'd? 

 

Aa a trial or TF mechanic? Could be fun!

 

But, again, something like that added to "regular" game content would wreck things for solos/small teams that didn't have control powers, and that's just not a Good Thing.  

Edited October 8, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[aethereal]

1 hour ago, Naraka said:

From the viewpoint of the meta, those AoE holds don't provide much AoE control when you calculate the uptime, the amount of slotting to make accurate and effective vs other more readily avaliable soft control to mix with the hard control that is available more often especially when you take into consideration the trash mobs won't live long enough to need them fully held. 

 

From my viewpoint, having that trick in my back pocket to neutralize an ambush spawn for nearly half a min while also juggling 2 other spawns with the rest of my AoE controls and engaging a 4th is just too much of a thrill to pass up. Does it happen often? No, but I still want to be able to regardless of if I have a perma-hasten def cap premium build. 

Uptime and "what power you click most" seem like they're over-prioritized by people in this thread.  You can be a key contributor to a team by having a suite of three powerful powers that you use one of on every other spawn.  Like, that's at least theoretically the case.  We can imagine a world in which a dominator spends most of his actual playtime using assault-set powers, but every other spawn or so fundamentally changes the dynamic with a long-cooldown power that neuters some major threat or rescues the team, and that that is a worthwhile character even if the majority of his button-clicking is doing DPS and that DPS is much worse than a blaster.  And similarly, we can imagine a troller who mostly heals or buffs or debuffs, and his heals, buffs, or debuffs are worse than a defender's, but again, he has these rescue power that get broken out only once ever few spawns but they are still super useful.

 

Now, I think it is the case that the current meta, or at least what people see of the current meta, is:

 

a.  A world in which you don't need rescues, not every spawn, not every other spawn, not even once every two or three missions, because what happens is the team deletes every spawn in a few seconds.  This is probably most true in things like PI radio missions or a few very commonly played, very well-understood TFs, but there's an undeniable element of it happening across the game, at least in high-level 8-perosn teams.

 

b.  The kinds of things which aren't just easily-deleted-spawns, which do provide some kind of threat that might need a rescue, are not necessarily well-handled by control sets.  The escalating ability to simply ignore controls brought on by rank in CoH is not super-well tuned to a reality in which the team has a LOT of ability to instantly kill minions.

 

c.  The all-or-nothing aspects of control makes it very hard to thread the needle between "My supposedly powerful control does literally nothing" and "I can city-of-statues the entire game."

 

But the solution to these problems is not, it seems to me, to throw up your hands and say, "A dominator is just a blaster with a useless primary powerset, you should bring its damage up to blaster levels," and "a controller is just a defender with a useless primary powerset, you should bring its buffs/debuffs/heals up to defender levels."

[Mezmera]

1 hour ago, Naraka said:

From the viewpoint of the meta, those AoE holds don't provide much AoE control when you calculate the uptime, the amount of slotting to make accurate and effective vs other more readily avaliable soft control to mix with the hard control that is available more often especially when you take into consideration the trash mobs won't live long enough to need them fully held. 

 

From my viewpoint, having that trick in my back pocket to neutralize an ambush spawn for nearly half a min while also juggling 2 other spawns with the rest of my AoE controls and engaging a 4th is just too much of a thrill to pass up. Does it happen often? No, but I still want to be able to regardless of if I have a perma-hasten def cap premium build. 

So you're statement here is saying not to take the aoe hard control and then you're contradicting yourself in the very next paragraph?  

 

Most control characters have a few soft aoe controls like immobs and terrify and typically one or two hard controls.  I like taking the hard controls for certain and cycling the softer controls as necessary as well.  It's about jumping the next mob before they jump you and if things go haywire it's good to have a few hard aoe controls at your disposal.  

 

Slotting for the longer recharging controls isn't all that complex.  I like to slot 5 of the purple hold set with the proc and another proc.  It's certain to proc well due to the base recharge so you're at the very least contributing good aoe damage while at the same time controlling the mob for the team to kill before your hold should wear off. 

[aethereal]

How's this for a problem statement:  "For controllers and dominators to be useful with their control-set powers, there need to be enemies which are fundamentally more vulnerable to controls than they are to damage, and such enemies are very rare in CoH."