Super Strength Proliferation to Scrappers and Stalkers

[Vanden]

55 minutes ago, aethereal said:

EDIT:  Honestly, we could just say, "Actually, there IS NO formula," and that would still to a large degree be better than what we have today.  What we have today is that we pretend there are rules, but the rules are unmoored from the reality of the game so we're actually eyeballing everything, we're just eyeballing in based on manipulating a largely meaningless number that derives other numbers (badly), instead of eyeballing it based on the numbers we actually care about directly.

This kind of thinking is how we end up with powers like armor t9s, with their crashes that kill you and their 1000-second recharges.

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

No radical redesign necessary.  We could decide on a new formula that weighted activation time, endurance cost, etc more heavily than recharge time, and then start designing to that when we make powersets, proliferate them, or rebalance them.  Older powers wouldn't agree with the new formula, but that's not the end of the world.  We'd just stop propagating this ridiculous, innumerate design decision onward and onward into the future.

 

EDIT:  Honestly, we could just say, "Actually, there IS NO formula," and that would still to a large degree be better than what we have today.  What we have today is that we pretend there are rules, but the rules are unmoored from the reality of the game so we're actually eyeballing everything, we're just eyeballing in based on manipulating a largely meaningless number that derives other numbers (badly), instead of eyeballing it based on the numbers we actually care about directly.

The damage of all powers is currently based on recharge, with a handful of exceptions. 

 

So IDK sounds radical to change that at this point.  

[aethereal]

8 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

The damage of all powers is currently based on recharge, with a handful of exceptions. 

 

So IDK sounds radical to change that at this point.  

Did you read what I said?  I'm not proposing changing the back catalog of powers.

[Coyotedancer]

8 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

*Sneak up behind a guy.*
"Ever play The Knockout Game?"
"What?  AHHH!"
*Thumps the guy in the head*
*Drops bonlessly to the ground*

 

Just so! 😁

[golstat2003]

4 hours ago, aethereal said:

Did you read what I said?  I'm not proposing changing the back catalog of powers.

Meh, this sounds like opening the door to trouble, when future designers have to think of pre-whatever issue powers versus post whatever issue powers.

 

I don't think we need to make the game more complex for the ones doing the actual design/coding, than it is.

[aethereal]

11 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

Meh, this sounds like opening the door to trouble, when future designers have to think of pre-whatever issue powers versus post whatever issue powers.

 

I don't think we need to make the game more complex for the ones doing the actual design/coding, than it is.

When you touch a power or a powerset, changing its balance, you use the new formula.  You don't go back and change everything in sets that aren't being rebalanced.  That's not complex.  It's imperfect, of course, but the status quo is too.  And to be clear, they effectively are doing this -- nobody is putting in a 2s animation, 2s recharge-time power, putting the damage according to its recharge time, and calling it a day -- even though that's fine per the formulas.  It's just that they're eyeballing everything instead of having a formula.

[Vanden]

21 hours ago, aethereal said:

EDIT:  Honestly, we could just say, "Actually, there IS NO formula," and that would still to a large degree be better than what we have today.  What we have today is that we pretend there are rules, but the rules are unmoored from the reality of the game so we're actually eyeballing everything, we're just eyeballing in based on manipulating a largely meaningless number that derives other numbers (badly), instead of eyeballing it based on the numbers we actually care about directly.

Didn't you start this conversation because you were dissatisfied with how the standard damage formula doesn't take cast time into account, and the devs are effectively eyeballing it? Why are you now advocating for a system where everything is eyeballed instead?

Edited November 29, 2020 by Vanden

[aethereal]

2 hours ago, Vanden said:

Didn't you start this conversation because you were dissatisfied with how the standard damage formula doesn't take cast time into account, and the devs are effectively eyeballing it? Why are you now advocating for a system where everything is eyeballed instead?

Because at least we wouldn't be going through this charade where we pretend that the difference between a three second and six second cooldown is at all meaningful and needs to be balanced around.

[Vanden]

4 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Because at least we wouldn't be going through this charade where we pretend that the difference between a three second and six second cooldown is at all meaningful and needs to be balanced around.

It's pretty meaningful at low levels.

[aethereal]

1 minute ago, Vanden said:

It's pretty meaningful at low levels.

We could give every melee and blast set 2s/4s T1 and T2s, without changing any damage, and everyone could enjoy a decent attack chain at lower levels, without changing level 50 balance meaningfully.  This is what i mean by it's just a dumb convention.

[Vanden]

3 minutes ago, aethereal said:

We could give every melee and blast set 2s/4s T1 and T2s, without changing any damage, and everyone could enjoy a decent attack chain at lower levels, without changing level 50 balance meaningfully.  This is what i mean by it's just a dumb convention.

If you take a power like Stone Mallet and give it a 4s recharge without changing the damage, it would have over twice the DPS of Seismic Smash. That's absolutely going to cause ripples in the high-level performance, and this was just the first set I checked. I don't think you've really thought this through.

[aethereal]

13 minutes ago, Vanden said:

If you take a power like Stone Mallet and give it a 4s recharge without changing the damage, it would have over twice the DPS of Seismic Smash. That's absolutely going to cause ripples in the high-level performance, and this was just the first set I checked. I don't think you've really thought this through.

Stone Mallet has 37.01 true DPA (Brute version).  It could have 0 recharge and it would not affect level 50 performance in the slightest.  It's at best filler.  If you use your filler more, that's not a good thing.  It has worse DPA than Stone Fist.

[Vanden]

13 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Stone Mallet has 37.01 true DPA (Brute version).  It could have 0 recharge and it would not affect level 50 performance in the slightest.  It's at best filler.  If you use your filler more, that's not a good thing.  It has worse DPA than Stone Fist.

Attack chains need filler and use it regularly. A Stone Melee character can't just cycle Seismic Smash and Gloom forever, they have to fill the time with something. If you just arbitrarily buff the recharge time on those powers, suddenly those attack chains need less recharge or fewer attacks, which means more room to build for defense. This definitely matters to overall balance.

[aethereal]

5 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Attack chains need filler and use it regularly. A Stone Melee character can't just cycle Seismic Smash and Gloom forever, they have to fill the time with something. If you just arbitrarily buff the recharge time on those powers, suddenly those attack chains need less recharge or fewer attacks, which means more room to build for defense. This definitely matters to overall balance.

Stone Fists has better DPA than Stone Mallet, and has a base recharge of 4s.  With just ordinary slotting, it's recharge will be somewhere in the realm of 1.33s on a level 50 build.  It's all the filler that Stone Melee needs.

 

Just to be clear: you're super wrong that dropping the recharge of Stone Mallet dropping from 8s to 4s would have balance implications that would "cause ripples" in level 50 performance.

[Vanden]

9 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Just to be clear: you're super wrong that dropping the recharge of Stone Mallet dropping from 8s to 4s would have balance implications that would "cause ripples" in level 50 performance.

Well, if we've reached the point where people are simply saying, "I'm right and you're wrong," I think we've derailed this thread enough.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Vanden

[DrBasics]

I mean, stalker version of Street Justice hits harder than anything Super Strength. That is pretty much the Stalker version of Super Strength.