Game Balance & The Endgame

[Blackfeather]

12 minutes ago, skoryy said:

The problem is considering a lvl 35-50 TF as max level content to begin with.  If your mobs base difficulty is level 35, incarnated 50s are going to blow through them even if level shifted.  They're not exactly endgame Arachnos or Malta.

 

Also, I'll add that 'tanks wading through everything' is a function of basic game design where most of the load bearing is done by defense caps and easily attainable layered defenses.  Yet in all the talk about game difficulty, I don't recall anyone ever mentioning lowering defense and resist caps.  🤔

Any thoughts on @oedipus_tex's thread brought up a little while back here?

[Gobbledigook]

2 hours ago, Lockpick said:

Okay, what is your definition of a power gamer?  And how would you classify yourself?  I generally see gamers labeled as casuals or power gamers.  If you are meeting the definition I provided I don't think you qualify as a casual.  Not sure if there other classifications I am not thinking about.

 

Here is a definition from Wikipedia:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powergaming

I see myself as an experienced casual. The IO system is there so why would you not learn it, as it is part of the game? its not exactly rocket. Making INF is not exactly hard once past 50. 

 

It's the same as any game, you get the best armour etc. Some have all the best in a few days (powergamers) and some take a lot longer, but this game is not exactly new to a lot of players and in my casual play time if have earned and learned. It is that simple.

 

And i just noticed i said "Exactly", too much 😛

Edited October 12, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[skoryy]

6 minutes ago, Blackfeather said:

Any thoughts on @oedipus_tex's thread brought up a little while back here?

Minor penalties that are even more minor for tankers isn't lowering the defense and resist caps.

[golstat2003]

4 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Wrong. This is what happens when balance changes are incorrectly applied.

Change is not the problem.

Constant change just for change is a problem when you have limited development resources. 
 

I would prefer the focus elsewhere after Page 6

 

Edited October 12, 2020 by golstat2003

[golstat2003]

4 hours ago, Haijinx said:

I'm totally casual.  I probably play less hours these days than most people on this thread.

 

I stick to one character at a time though.  That makes a huge difference. 

 

And no a billion really isn't that much.  Even a haphazard unfocused incarnate can make 50 million in a few hours. 

 

 

 

Would be interesting to see in a game of altitis how many actually do stick to one character at a time though. I don’t think the devs have shown stats on that.

Edited October 12, 2020 by golstat2003

[oedipus_tex]

13 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

Would be interesting to see in a game of altitis how many actually do stick to one character at a time though. I don’t think the devs have shown stats on that.

 

Well we can get some idea just from the number of times some of us have rerolled the same character. 😄

 

[Coyotedancer]

And here I thought *I* was a nut for having three versions of Kai.... 😝

[FUBARczar]

6 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Oh horseshit. It's not a case of X being able to solo Y. It's a case of X being able to solo Y at the max diff, with no inspirations, with enemies buffed with +50% acc and damage and ZERO deaths.
It's a prime example of the ridiculous power creep that this game suffered from for years BEFORE the shutdown.

So have many other ATs, I've personally done it with a few.  I wouldn't say Tank buffs weren't needed.  For instance I personally wouldn't really play Tanks prior to the change.  Although my first HC character was a Bio/Spine Tank that I leveled 1-50 and that experience taught me how woeful they were offensively.  Stubbornly I tried again with a WP/Rad, but again the same result.  Why in the world would I continue to play tanks when I could do the same job, and contribute more to the team all the while IMO having more fun, with a better ability to solo when needed, etc. with a Brute?

 

My answer was that I wouldn't.  So I only made brutes until the change.  And since, I have made several. 

[FUBARczar]

4 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

I haven't seen a huge increase in the number of characters with massive set-bonus lists out in the game over the course of the last year-and-change, Haijinx... and as I've said before, I habitually look at the info panes of the people I'm teamed with. This power inflation thing just isn't happening to any huge extent.

 

The majority of the characters I see on Everlasting and Excelsior may have a few procs and specials, and maybe a handful of set bonuses listed. They're just not the softcapped-to-everything/IO-ed out unstoppable powerhouses that most of us forum-dwellers know how to build.  

hmmm that is not my experience.  I typically see tons of characters with moderate to long IO bonus lists.  If they are level 50 without many bonuses I take a gander at the vet level, and it is almost always low if they have few bonuses.  

[Bill Z Bubba]

14 minutes ago, FUBARczar said:

So have many other ATs, I've personally done it with a few.  I wouldn't say Tank buffs weren't needed.  For instance I personally wouldn't really play Tanks prior to the change.  Although my first HC character was a Bio/Spine Tank that I leveled 1-50 and that experience taught me how woeful they were offensively.  Stubbornly I tried again with a WP/Rad, but again the same result.  Why in the world would I continue to play tanks when I could do the same job, and contribute more to the team all the while IMO having more fun, with a better ability to solo when needed, etc. with a Brute?

 

My answer was that I wouldn't.  So I only made brutes until the change.  And since, I have made several. 

Simply put, on the day we could create/migrate brutes blueside, they should have had their mitigation caps reduced. It didn't matter when the sides were locked away from each other. But you just described yet another in a long list of imbalances amongst the ATs.

[FUBARczar]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Simply put, on the day we could create/migrate brutes blueside, they should have had their mitigation caps reduced. It didn't matter when the sides were locked away from each other. But you just described yet another in a long list of imbalances amongst the ATs.

Wrong it still mattered before Rogue.  Of course people did and would make those comparisons and feel the same things whether or not there was a blending of the sides.  It does not remove the fact that Tanks even compared to other Blue ATs were weak offensively.  Soloing felt tedious for many if not most.  Many also felt a lack of contribution compared to those contributions made by teammates.  

 

Thank goodness I rarely see a ton of tanks who seemingly do nothing but taunt anymore; I suppose they did that because their attacks were so anemic and felt they didn't really contribute much otherwise.  

 

Edit:

Also it doesn't matter if Brutes defenses were lowered to even scrapper level, I would have still played Brutes over the old Tanks.  All that matters is the ability to control aggro.  

Edited October 13, 2020 by FUBARczar

[Coyotedancer]

3 hours ago, FUBARczar said:

hmmm that is not my experience.  I typically see tons of characters with moderate to long IO bonus lists.  If they are level 50 without many bonuses I take a gander at the vet level, and it is almost always low if they have few bonuses.  

Running with different crowds, maybe... Some content does seem to attract more IOed characters than other things, like we were talking about upthread with the Hami raids, and there's always going to be some difference between various parts of the community. I'd fully expect a group recruited from, say, a channel full of devoted badgers or task force runners to tend more towards set-builds than a group that was pulled entirely from an RP-centric SG, for instance. I may spend more time with the later while you're mostly running with the former.

[Haijinx]

6 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

Would be interesting to see in a game of altitis how many actually do stick to one character at a time though. I don’t think the devs have shown stats on that.

I don't know.  The solution to not having a ton of time to play is to focus on less characters though. 

 

That's every MMO.  

 

My single "Billion Influence" Build Character is just as good as anyone else's billion Influence Character even if they have 10 other billion Influence builds. 

 

Generally I'll play 1 character till I have a medium power end game build (roughly 300 mil in IOs)  and maybe 5 vet levels.  Usually that character becomes boring and I put them into retirement.  Boring is usually some combination of tired of the animations, tired of that AT, tired of the sounds my attack powers make, or stuff is just too easy.   

 

If someone is both "Casual" and has out of control altitis, they should be fine playing at +0x1 to be honest.  

[FUBARczar]

5 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

Running with different crowds, maybe... Some content does seem to attract more IOed characters than other things, like we were talking about upthread with the Hami raids, and there's always going to be some difference between various parts of the community. I'd fully expect a group recruited from, say, a channel full of devoted badgers or task force runners to tend more towards set-builds than a group that was pulled entirely from an RP-centric SG, for instance. I may spend more time with the later while you're mostly running with the former.

Probably true.  I am usually "hanging around" all the level 50+ content: TFs, iTrials, PI, etc.  My characters only have one setting, +4/8 and usually Master setting on TF w/o inspirations.  Including LGTF and mini-Hami, and it's not for the badge.  Actually there should be levels of Master of badges like Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Plaid, err Platinum. 

[Ralathar44]

13 hours ago, FUBARczar said:

hmmm that is not my experience.  I typically see tons of characters with moderate to long IO bonus lists.  If they are level 50 without many bonuses I take a gander at the vet level, and it is almost always low if they have few bonuses.  

Yeah that's been my experience as well.  I start seeing a fair amount of bonuses at about 25-30 as people frankenslot and as 50 closes in I see more and greater bonuses.  Maybe on live with rare/expensive IOs did most people use SOs, but here on HC they are way cheaper/more available and a much higher % of the population playing HC are long time veterans of the game....because that's most of who still play a sunsetted game on private servers.

Folks need to remember that even Frankenslotting is a huge power boost over SOs since you can max like 3-4s areas (acc/dmg/end/recharge for example), use lets slots overall, and still get some minor to modest set bonuses even if you're not concerned with set bonuses.  Meanwhile with normal SOs you can barely max 2 areas and get no extra set bonuses.

Edited October 13, 2020 by Ralathar44

[Coyotedancer]

5 hours ago, FUBARczar said:

Probably true.  I am usually "hanging around" all the level 50+ content: TFs, iTrials, PI, etc.  My characters only have one setting, +4/8 and usually Master setting on TF w/o inspirations.  Including LGTF and mini-Hami, and it's not for the badge.  Actually there should be levels of Master of badges like Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Plaid, err Platinum. 

I want a Plaid badge. SO do. 🤣

[golstat2003]

18 hours ago, Haijinx said:

I don't know.  The solution to not having a ton of time to play is to focus on less characters though. 

 

That's every MMO.  

 

My single "Billion Influence" Build Character is just as good as anyone else's billion Influence Character even if they have 10 other billion Influence builds. 

 

Generally I'll play 1 character till I have a medium power end game build (roughly 300 mil in IOs)  and maybe 5 vet levels.  Usually that character becomes boring and I put them into retirement.  Boring is usually some combination of tired of the animations, tired of that AT, tired of the sounds my attack powers make, or stuff is just too easy.   

 

If someone is both "Casual" and has out of control altitis, they should be fine playing at +0x1 to be honest.  

I generally think the number of power gamers are much higher here than on live. I think we we can safely say though that more people have 50s here then on live. Not sure if we can say if more folks focus on one character at a time though. I would bet the majority though are still folks who stick to SOs.

Edited October 14, 2020 by golstat2003

[Wavicle]

Raising the Judgement recharge to something closer to 2.5 or 3 minutes seems pretty reasonable to me.

Lowering the the burst at the front of Destiny so it's closer to the value it has toward the end would also be pretty reasonable.

Lore damage and buff/debuff values could also come down slightly and still be well worth the effort of obtaining them.

[Haijinx]

7 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

I generally think the number of power gamers are much higher here than on live. I think we we can safely say though that more people have 50s here then on live. Not sure if we can say if more folks focus on one character at a time though. I would bet the majority though are still folks who stick to SOs.

You think the majority of players stick to SOs?

 

I highly doubt that. 

 

The majority of *characters* might be SO or IO equivalent.  

 

But thats because a lot of people wait to 50 to figure out their build.    

 

Also I think inferring someone who has a level 50 as a "power gamer" is ludacris.  It takes almost no effort to get to 50 in this game. 

 

No camping is required.  No gear searching.  Nothing.  You can just plug in the SOs you get and keep teaming.  

 

If you just played 3 hours a week, you could pug to 50 in a couple of months.  

 

 

[oedipus_tex]

I took a snapshot of the state of various characters I have run recently. Far from a full picture but it provides an idea.

 

Top left is my main-main. Only character who has a full build with Range defense, S/L defense, and everything. (I have one other character, a Stalker, who has a similar end game build).

 

The Oedipus Tex character himself is less complete. He uses the "Trust Fund Perma Dom build" I posted about here: 

 

 

 

Top-right is a semi complete build. I like this character but he's being retired in favor of the Earth/Savage Tex build.

 

 

Bottom row is what would be joining your radio teams or other content. These usually get a mercy IO or 2 where the character is lagging. 

 

[oedipus_tex]

BTW is there a way to revert certain IOs to their pre-PPM rate of fire? There are a few that stand out as "way too good" and encroaching deep into Dominator space:

• Lockdown: Chance for Mag 2 Hold
• Coercive Persuasion: Contagious Confusion

 

IMO these two procs should be reverted to a flat 20% chance to trigger and not be based on PPM. Maybe all mezz procs should as well. My Scrapper shouldn't have a 90% chance to Hold a Boss in one cast while my Controller or non-perma Dom has a 40% chance because his Hold recharges faster. 

 

If this fixes these two procs in toggle powers like Arctic Air and Choking Cloud where they used to be pretty decent, even better. 

Edited October 14, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[golstat2003]

5 hours ago, Haijinx said:

You think the majority of players stick to SOs?

 

I highly doubt that. 

 

The majority of *characters* might be SO or IO equivalent.  

 

But thats because a lot of people wait to 50 to figure out their build.    

 

Also I think inferring someone who has a level 50 as a "power gamer" is ludacris.  It takes almost no effort to get to 50 in this game. 

 

No camping is required.  No gear searching.  Nothing.  You can just plug in the SOs you get and keep teaming.  

 

If you just played 3 hours a week, you could pug to 50 in a couple of months.  

 

 

Should have said a 50 with IOs and full incarnate build. I think a majority of folks play various characters due to altitis. I don't think a majority of folks stick to one 50 they play all the time. (whether it has IOs or not). Even for the folks with 50s, they jump around on them.

 

Ofcouse this is all a nice discussion, but would be nice if we had some stats. Maybe we do and we missed them.

[Coyotedancer]

As far as I know, the devs here have never posted any numbers about the SO vs common IO vs Set-build question for Homecoming characters. It would be interesting to see how the situation here compares to the "people mostly use SOs" bit the devs in the old days found.

[Ralathar44]

7 hours ago, Haijinx said:

You think the majority of players stick to SOs?

 

I highly doubt that. 

 

The majority of *characters* might be SO or IO equivalent.  

 

But thats because a lot of people wait to 50 to figure out their build.    

 

Also I think inferring someone who has a level 50 as a "power gamer" is ludacris.  It takes almost no effort to get to 50 in this game. 

 

No camping is required.  No gear searching.  Nothing.  You can just plug in the SOs you get and keep teaming.  

 

If you just played 3 hours a week, you could pug to 50 in a couple of months.  

 

 

Yeah the current amount of time/effort to get to 50 on HC City of Heroes is a fraction of that required to get to end game on many MMORPGs and there are tons of casuals and pugs at end game of those other MMOs.   Way back in the day when you had to grind all day to get a single bar of exp I'd have agreed with level 50s being mostly power gamers.  But that's not what this game is anymore.  In a very casual teaming environment facing mainly +2s I still went from 40-44 in a few hours.

And if you power level via an AE group you can level far faster than that.  I think I had a new character i didn't want to play the slow early levels of go from 1-20 in a single AE mission and I actually dropped before the end of it to avoid overleveling where I wanted to be.

Edited October 14, 2020 by Ralathar44

[Bill Z Bubba]

Wrong thread. 🙂

Edited October 14, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba